If you’re still not scared
Posted on
April 07, 2021 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
…you’re not paying attention. Real images from last night’s SNP broadcast:
It’s not a cult, though. The whole thing can be seen here.
I’m terribly sorry, there’s a mistake in the above post. This is the actual broadcast. I couldn’t tell the difference.
link to bbc.co.uk
She who must be obeyed
The short haired one.
Huh?
WTAF?
You know I didn’t see this, as soon as it started I turned over, I just can’t bear to look at or hear anyone from the SNP talk but god almighty if that doesn’t tell you something your really not paying attention.
How could anyone possibly think that was a smart idea?
Double Plus Ungood
Scotsoc – The MI5 vision for Scotland’s future & past
Got to assume it’s aimed at the younger generation, not brought up reading 1984, and that there is no irony intended in the broadcast at all.
I am desperate for someone to tell me that I missed the point, and that it was about hope, but if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….
My search for a house in Northumberland just took on a new sense of urgency.
When you see Alex Cole-Hamilton smirking you know you “done” wrong!
“The tentacles of the SNP have poisoned all of our civic bodies with poison.” – Jim Sillars
I’ve said it before, if you vote SNP1 then you are voting for Sturgeon & her Cult to do whatever they want in the next 5 years. She will see EVERY SNP vote as a vote of confidence in HER. Its not about voting for Independence or Union, its about stopping Sturgeon so we don’t live in a fascist country with a dictator trying to jail her enemies, allowing men in female single sex spaces and arresting people for ‘hate’ crimes like saying ‘a woman does not have a penis’.
So don’t vote for her and if you really can’t vote Labour, Liberal or Conservative then spoil your paper. If SNP do badly, she will be forced to resign. The Alba party will have no power to stop her. Alex tried his best in the Inquiry but he failed and will fail again.
Seems Nicola thinks she is a saint for going on TV and must be obeyed. At best she is like a line manager with no charisma. How she thought this ad would be popular shows her utter arrogance and displays her authoritarian, totalitarian brand. Sorry I can’t vote these dangerous cult idiots but I will vote Alex Salmond in the list. Time the intelligent Scots came back to the fore.
When I watched it last night , I forgot how much she resembled Bob Flag.
Alex on GMS this morning, ripped Gary a new arse hole . How I’ve missed the big man – just absolutely brilliant. They are a snide bunch of bastards at the BBC.
Jings, that was creepy and somewhat amateurish. As for the TV images of Nicola Sturgeon – 1984 or what?
Eh… Is it just because I’ve seen too many dystopian pop videos…?
I’ve no problem with a party promoting its leader, but in the current climate of (should be) wanting to build bridges to a splintering party I would have thought promoting a team of people above an individual would be a good move.
Genuinely wonder what the production team felt this imagery was conveying.
I can’t watch the real thing from your link because I don’t have a TV Licence and don’t want the stormtroopers from the Stasi National Party landing on my roof via helicopter and dragging me off to room 101 where I’m forced to listen to endless Sturrell speeches and watch drag queen videos whilst eating hummus on a bed of rocket with my pure mineral water to wash it down.
I’m sure someone will post on youtube.
Very Creepy
Scary! Not watching in case there are subliminal messages. Sturgeon has truly lost the plot.
The devotees would rather drink the Nikoolade than come to their senses though.
Guess some of the indyref money was spent buying up all the old tellys in Scotland
Damn that Rev Stu.
On minute you think you’ve got a scoop, but then you check Wings… lol
I watched it again and I am warming to the message. What is subliminal about it? About it about it about it
I only heard it on the radio and it came across very well.
Other than the #BothVotesSNP nonsense it was very much pro indy.
Don’t watch much telly
Evil Edna
Times like this I’m grateful not to have tv. I watched it through your link though, jeez that was just awful. Sorry Mr Salmond, I’m not voting for her cult any time soon.
No but we voted for you for the last 14 years and our deprived areas are still shiteholes, our education system has got worse, the attainment gap has widened, government tentacles are in our day to day life more frequently but let’s all blame Westminster.
Until there is major change the SNP is never getting my vote again.
Aye, like Nicola herself, that was a bit of a performance.
Morgatron @ 9:20,
Have you got a link?
How Orwellian (even the original version).
Big Sister is watching you!
A dystopian combination of Blair New Labour lies and spin coupled with never grown up Corbyn student activism.
Can’t really get excited about it. Whatever they had released would have been criticised. There is so much pop culture in the archive there could be a negative connotation to just about everything. If it’s your preferred party you will enjoy and agree with the broadcast if it isn’t you won’t, it will not sway a single voter. Just have to swallow the bile this time and vote SNP 1 and Alba 2. This is the absolute last chance saloon for Independence, there is no other party rightly or wrongly in a position to deliver it. If independence doesn’t happen soon we might as well just get on with the suffering in the UK.
All bow down before Big Sister NS LOL!
But seriously the message is entirely justified until the ‘bothvotesSNPgood’ at the end. We had that in 2016 and where did that get us? Five years of prevarication and effectively an admission of a Westminster veto. Notwithstanding “cannae dae anything while there’s a plandemic oan!”
Need mair than what Nicola’s offering. Hence SNP1 ALBA2.
Just got my SNP request for more cash – that won’t be happening, they’ve got my vote but the cash stops until they come up with the goods! Don’t worry Wingers I’ll keep a little something by for Stu’s next fund-raiser. Onwards and upwards, with or without our current leadership.
Wee Chid and others without a tv
Here is a link which Breeks posted on the previous
link to twitter.com
Brilliant Orwell quote..so is this one and a reflection of where we’re at
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it”
It has to be wrestled from their grasp.
I found it very very creepy
I saw people posting those images on twitter and assumed it must be a mickey take. That’s real?
The SNP comms and advertising people must be stoned.
The SNP are so vacuous and morally bankrupt they no longer understand that popular sci-fi novels and movies are (often) cautionary tales – not fucking blueprints for the future!
…Or do they? (sci-fi plot twist in there somewhere)
I can only hope Salmond has come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And is all out of bubblegum.
`Big Sister`
That was a seriously sh*t PPB. What on earth were they thinking? “Both votes SNP” with no rationale whatsoever? Aye right! Even with next to no money in the bank and completely run by the wokies, they should have………………….well, I suppose. 🙂
Having had experience of filming commercial and political TV ads, I’ve never understood the idea of the huge backdrop with the ‘leaders face’ larger than life.
It’s a common idea, and producers and directors love it. It looks grand and epic. They are selling the product or the brand, and Nicola Sturgeon is the brand. All very American and Presidential.
I think that Rev Stu is bang on the money, it’s looks scary
Slightly off-topic — but why do I have to buy a TV licence to be able to see Election Broadcasts?
I watched this in horror at just how low the SNP have sunk. I think if prove were ever needed that they are NOT an INDEPENDENCE party, this should be all the proof any real YESSER, any real activist fighting for INDEPENDENCE would need to know that what Scotlands has needed for the past 6yrs, is not just a new leader of the SNP but a new party that can replace the SNP. Thank god we have that with ALBA..
Obviously it won’t be at this election, this is an election where ALBA must impress, where they must win seats (many seats) hopefully enough to make them the opposition party to the STURGEON Party. For this election we must work together, Alex will always be head & shoulders above Sturgeon when it comes to thinking on his feet, keeping RECORDS of everything said or done.. While she feigns a bad memory for every dirty deed she has been involved in. HE will remind her..
Once the public realise the only person actually arguing against INDEPENDENCE or another referendum. Is the leader of the so called INDY Government..
Surely she will not sell Scotland out if we have a supermajority.. If she even tries, she will be finished.
Alex is right to say that if we succeed with a supermajority the fight for INDY starts on the 7th of May.
Sturgeon has allowed the WM nasties, to build U.K. buildings, cover all Scots produce in the butchers Apron, She knows the internal market Bill, is ready to go. Removing, if not absolutely closing down HR & yet she wants to give the Clowns in WM more time to do as much damage to our powers, our institutions, & our assets, before she will swallow a little bit of pride & work with ALBA to Stop the carnage that awaits us all.
Proving if she doesn’t she is NOT a leader, just another full of herself careerist who is all about Me Me Me..
Fortunately for my sanity, apart from Line of Duty, I have given up on “Cooncil telly,” so, unless Wee Eck gets onto any election debates, I will not be watching any political stuff between now and 6 May.
It is getting more difficult to stick to my SNP 1, ALBA 2, voting intentions. My ALBA vote is secured, it’s the holding my nose bit on the Constituency where I am struggling.
Meg merrilees says:
7 April, 2021 at 9:34 am
Thanks. Am I ok to watch it alone?
Ooooh, You’ll go to hell for that one…Btw, was that a very young Gregor Fisher at 2.22?
I didn’t really like it but I am sure this will land with some voters as ‘this is that woman that’s been on the telly…..watching over your health’. Not how it came over to me personally but it will depend on awareness of the average voter about other policies, such as ‘nae pizza’ and some of the other Greatest Hits.
I was at least as exercised by the ad’s attempts to make it ‘Nicola v Boris’ in an election where the latter isn’t standing and going on about austerity, which we can only escape any time soon by pursuing independence quickly instead of at a glacial pace (because it’s a reserved policy area, spending. Never mind that many of her advisers seem to favour it in any case).
Then folk moan that folk don’t understand the difference between reserved and devolved policy areas.
7-years ago the Scottish Government was building a new school. The old school was old and knackered and everyone wanted it replaced.
When work started, a chap stepped forward and said: ‘you’ve made a mistake here, this design won’t work now, the school will sink, get it checked’.
The chap was sacked and they just carried-on.
For the past 7-years, the chap has been asking for this school to be checked. He even had it expertly checked himself. At last, two weeks ago, the Scottish Government relented and got it checked.
So, elsewhere in the world it takes a day to get checked, in Scotland it takes 7-years.
No-one knows the results yet. Can the results be redacted?….no they can’t. Can the results be covered-up?….no they can’t. It’s a problem then, isn’t it.
Interestingly enough and just like the Alex Salmond case, all those government officials involved have kept their jobs and those most involved have been promoted.
My MSP is the excellent MSP for Dumbarton and even she cannot make headway at Holyrood. That tells me there is something fundamentally wrong with government in Scotland. That said, the teaching unions haven’t been much help either.
Another similarity with the Salmond case is the fact that Government lawyers are covering everything up. It’s election time and so everyone is extra-sensative. That’s the way they look at it in Scotland and it seems to work for them.
It doesn’t work that way anywhere else in the world.
So, we’re all just waiting….and waiting….and waiting. In the meantime, John Swinney’s out on the campaign trail and so he’s not bothering his shirt.
Can’t wait for the Alba reply with AS in shorts and a vest running into the hall, out of breath and wheezing, before lobbing a sledge hammer at the screen.
Appropriate. She is, after all, being slowly and steadily boxed into a corner.
Well you metropolitan lot can sneer all you like but I’m actually looking forward to Hate Week.
It tells us everything we need to know about the Caledonian version of Ingsoc – Scotsoc? tho’ it sounds like a brand of cheap hosiery! – that nobody in the SNP media team looked at that and thought: “Is it no a wee bit 1984 tho’ lads?”
“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past”.
The current SNP leadership are the “inner party” de nos jours.
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought”
The SNP only want us to listen to the Dear Leader.
“Ignore the last 14 years of SNP misrule. Look into my eyes, not around my eyes, into my eyes……..”
Just when you thought they couldn’t get any creepier.
It is said that the masks come off when people are under extreme pressure. That’s when you see the real character lurking within. Well, our ex-FM and current FM have both been under extreme pressure during the past year. The masks have come off, revealing one to be polite, composed, tacking the difficult personal questions but also keen to move on and win independence for Scotland. The other, however, now reveals a nasty, small-minded, vindictive character, unwilling to let it go and willing to do anything for self-protection. I will leave y’all to decide which one is which. 🙂
Thank you Meg and Breeks for the link above. In general terms I thought the broadcast contents and delivery acceptable. I thought the leader projection section of it crass and ill thought through. Much better, in answer to the question “who will look after you”, would have been some images of our parliament or parliamentarians as a collective team. We don’t need Orwell or V for Vendetta style “great leader” backgrounds, I find it creepy.
Fancy using a programme based on 1984 in a political broadcast. Says a lot to me.
There was a time when SNP broadcasts liked to show beautiful Scottish scenery, not stuck in a dark and dank dystopia.
Rev, just read an article on The Guardian where Alex Salmond’s position was (paraphrased) that a “supermajority” of pro-Indy MSPs would see opposition to a referendum melt away. Isn’t that basically what the SNP have been saying, for which you have roundly criticised them? Doesn’t seem to be a huge difference in approach…
It actually resembled a pisspoor hommage to some of the scenes in ‘Bladerunner’, but without the light hearted jocularity.
Seriously, if that’s all they have to offer, namely the relentless synecdoche and the constant stirring up of hatred (of the kind that’s acceptable), and ‘othering’, we deserve what we get if they get back in to office.
Ah, so the £600k disappeared on the production costs for this Orwellian remake! That’s sorted then!
Its the ‘big, bad Tory’ line again. Waving the spectre of the boogieman in front of us. Eye roll.
Like Labour did for the last 40 years and didn’t make a jot of difference.
Depressing.
I am not sure that too many folk understand just how corrupted the ‘system’ has become over the last few years and the savage manner in which dissent is dealt with.
The SNP are running the country through control rather than governance and suppressing anything that does not appear to conform to their own dogma.
It is as close to totalitarianism as you can get.
We need Alba to fragment this a.s.a.p. and to restore the rule of law and some semblance of democracy.
Because of personal experience, I cannot bring myself to vote SNP1 so will probably wasted that vote or vote tactically to bring down Swinney.
The PPB was apt. It tells you everything about the current state of play.
Or their so broke that they had to go to the dump to get props for their broadcast…
Spike:
While I don’t think it will be as easy as ‘melt away’ the chief difference between the SNP and Alba positions as I make it is that Salmond might actually ‘do politics’ and try to use other routes to get what he wants, e.g. threaten to go ahead with plebiscitary elections if a referendum is not agreed via section 30.
He mentioned other tactics which could be brought to bear. In short, he seemed to have many routes to ‘exhaust’ while SNP and Sturgeon exhausted the one route they want to push ages ago but are pretending they haven’t.
Eva Peron
link to archive.ph
Are the Scottish public that dumb?
Does this new penchant for dismal underground settings mean that Sturgeon’s habitual post-election photocall with her returned SNP parliamentarians is going to eschew the usual uplifting and iconic backgrounds, the Forth Rail Bridge, the Kelpies etc, in favour of a Room 101 scene?
Perhaps Peter Murrell can sub them.
He must be minted by now.
It’s a bit too V For Vendetta style for my liking. I half expected all the screens and images to explode. It does at least mention independence, but it’s done in such a creepy way I’m not sure it’s going to convince anyone wavering.
“a forced exit that’s dragging Scotland out of Europe against our will”.
No, past participle needed there I’m afraid – dragged. Too late on that front.
Praise the Lord!
Sturgeon United FC has assumed control!
You’re either with them, or against them.
By the way, anyone got £600 grand to spare?
Asking for a friend…
Yeah the SNPs PPP definitely has Orwellian 1984-ish connotations about it, especially with the SNPs personality cult figure Sturgeon popping up on all the screens.
On the Alex Salmond Radio Shortbread interview this morning.
As we can predict all Unionist Interview questions from England’s BBC,
Can I suggest the following answers.
Do want to apologise for sexual harassment?
And 2 Judges, 2 Committees and a mainly female Jury announced
that I had no case to answer.
How about the BBC explains why it became a breading ground for paedos
Like Jimmy Saville, Ralph Harris, Jonathan King, Stuart Hall, etc etc.
Are you saying no one at the BBC ever seen anything happening with so many
involved over so many decades?
You better look at yourselves as the jury is still out on you lot.
You work for nasty Russian TV?
And- No RT give me a free unhindered opportunity to express my point of views without interruption,
without hindrance and allow me to invite distinguished guests with a broad range of views.
None of the Unionist broadcasters would allow any of this as you well know.
Are you gaming the system?
And No the Unionist system came ready gamed to try and prevent an independent majority.
Are you saying that only one Independence Party should be permitted when a boatload of
Unionist parties participate? We had small Unionist Parties the last time around joining the big 3,
UKIP for example.
Can you point me to a BBC interview where you informed Farage he was gaming the system.
The gloves need to come off for these suppressive bully boys.
Attack is the best form of defence.
Ask them who is responsible for signing off on their questions.
Ask you they are voting for?
Ask if they can name anyone on the BBC payroll who dares say they are independence supporters.
Ask if they agree with Westminster’s plans to remove more devolved powers.
Can they confirm why they never made a documentary look at the Vow and how every promise was broken.
Do go to these people to be interviewed, be there to attack them for all they do!
” The SNP comms and advertising people must be stoned. ”
I love a double entendre.
A party that has lost its way needs a new leader.
Vote SNP 1 and ALBA 2 to get indy back on track.
I noticed that a lot of the script rhymed, a sort of rubbish semi-rap. Did Loki write it for them gratis?
And when the pushes come to shoves,
Mummy Bear will eat her cubs.
Speaking of Orwell’s ‘1984’, wonder w hat would be waiting for Sturgeon in room 101?
Her eyelids pulled back Alex ‘A Clockwork Orange’ style, as a film loop plays of Salmond resuming the role of First Minister, and leading Scotland to Independence?
Horrorshow!
Viddy well, young Nicola, viddy well.
WOW there is no mistaking those optics is there…when they tell you who they are, BELIEVE THEM!
Is this an attempt at mass hypnosis.
Have the Scottish people, or more correctly those few unfortunates who watched the broadcast by mistake, been put to sleep.
@Spike 10.09 am
The point is that a supermajority allows Holyrood to dissolve its current session and call plebiscitary elections to subvent a yoon veto of #indyref2. As John Martin stated at 10.14 am, Alex is proposing a number of different approaches and tactics some of which can be used concurrently to improve the chances of independence being achieved.
What those of us critical of the SNP have to hammer home is that an absolute SNP majority post May elections, or an SNP/Green coalition, simply delivers 5 more years of the same gradualist stasis we’ve endured since 2014. The only hope then would be that SNP members stage a coup to rid themselves of the Sturgeon’s Peronism. It would not be wise to bet the farm on the SNP membership growing a pair given their supine reaction to the Sturgeonites thus far.
Not allowed to watch via that link without a TV tax licence. Seen enough, anyway.
Meanwhile the NewSNP President is asking people on Twitter to give money to Bella Caledonia. He doesn’t answer questions about all the missing “woven-through” money already given to NewSNP.
I can see what they thought they were trying to do. But. It came across like a dark graphic novel visually, the music was sinister, and the message wasn’t targeted at the Scottish people. The target was Alba. For almost the first time the SNP has been forced to go on the constitutional question, of independence. And only one man, one party, is responsible for that. As Ian MacWhirter said at the weekend “Only Alex Salmond could dominate an election campaign by saying nothing”. He’s not the elephant in the room; he’s the lion, and the other parties are watching, and responding desperately to his very existence. But Nic still can’t bring herself to see the folly of “both votes SNP”. Only when she swallows her pride and hate, and backs Alba on the second vote, will she regain any credibility as an independence seeking nationalist.
Humza’s been busy drafting the new Thoughtcrime Bill for the new parliament.
Ohh the irony
Douglass Ross looks like losing 6 seats to George Galloway and his All For Unity Party set up by Michael Gove and George Galloway.
A London tory scheme is cutting the legs away from the Tories in Scotland and Douglass Ross will take the blame for not being as loud as the Baroness and she has a cushy future ahead!.
If he had a pair of balls he would tell them where to shove it.
Well the National newspapers star comment in its comments pages, is one that has a go at Alex Salmond, and here’s me thinking that the National newspaper didn’t support any political party, and that it supported Scottish independence, silly me.
1984 – Big Brother is watching ((((((shiver))))))
What idiot thought the Scots would embrace images like that. It had a very negative impact on me given the leaders in history who adopted that style of self promotion.
Are the SNP deliberately trying to make themselves unelectable?
Are the SNP comms people really Alba supporters and simply taking the piss?
Oh dear, so if we take the Apple 1984 ad, can we cast Alba in Apple’s role?
link to youtube.com watch?v=R706isyDrqI
The subtext of the broadcast is that Sturgeon’s voice is the only one to listen to and that the SNP IS Sturgeon.
Cue the next generation of SNP leaders.
Project Fear – The Rise of Alba.
What a strange interview this morning with BBCGaryR. Lots of bizarre questions with a menacing undercurrent of they are still going to get you, Mr Salmond.
I don’t know how he kept his cool with those Russia questions. You can imagine Smith and McDonald sitting there like Waldorf and Statler heckling Gary R. ‘Ask him about Salisbury, Gary, ask him!’
All in all a very undignified and unhinged collective losing of sh*t from the establishment.
Weird, that reference to the Apple 1984 ad was an intentionally broken link, sans H T T P : / / and with a space added, and yet it somehow got partially repaired.
So use your favourite search engine to find it.
At the end of the first link (1984), I could believe that was Alyn Smith on the screen.
Well at least we know who he models himself on!
From some of the reactions on Twitter to Alba, the posters would have been shoe-ins for parts in that clip too!
Scary!
‘The governments that care most about Scotland will be Scottish governments, of whatever party.’
Odd line for SNP election broadcast.
It’s the SNP state of mind
Looks vaguely familiar.
link to imdb.com
A really awful political broadcast – sinister, whinging and full of shit. And beyond emptily calling for independence, it was relentlessly negative. The message is the same old same old: nothing is our fault, everything is Westminster’s fault; it will all be wonderful when we are independent because we are better than the English (code: ‘Westminster’) because we ‘care’ whilst they are bastards.
But as Jerry Sadowitz pointed out, actually getting independence would be bad because then the moaning and blaming the English would have to stop (eventually anyway), and this is now bolstered by the cosy, feet-under-the-table SNP MP gravy train that can sit back in London, moan, huff, scoff, vote against everything as a single Stepford Wives’ unit, all the while drawing a nice big salary, significant perks, and backslapping newly-made ‘helpful’ contacts behind closed doors, whilst basking in the sickly, ghoulishly nourishing glow of perpetual self-righteous indignation.
(I’ll get me coat)
Throw the SNP out, and let Salmond build up the Alba Party to become the main force at Holyrood. Yes it might take some time, but instead of a morally bankrupt regime who pretend to want independence, Scotland will have a government to be proud of. They will have captured the moral high ground and will make the goal of independence much more attainable. I wish AS had let Alba contest the constituency seats this time round. Perhaps that was a bridge too far.
Sorry folks, link didn’t work.
Was a still from 1984 with John Hurt, gloomy room and dear leaders face projected on wall behind.
Check it out on Imbd.
I’m rather disappointed they didn’t show Salmond as Emmanuel Goldstein. Would be interesting to get hold of the original storyboard. I bet I wouldn’t be disappointed then.
Now if only Kim Yo-jong would depose her brother we could twin Scotland with North Korea.
Astonished says:
7 April, 2021 at 10:25 am
” The SNP comms and advertising people must be stoned. ”
I love a double entendre.
Yeah, that made me smile too… lol
There is an additional method apparent the the Alba approach of not contesting the constituencies.
Which is if they don’t achieve their aim this cycle, then in 2026 they should have the recognition to contest constituencies and the lists (i.e. propose to take over from the SNP), together with another list only party (e.g. ISP) taking on Alba’s current role.
Essentially a clever approach to reducing what might otherwise be a 25-30 year period to bring a replacement for the SNP to the fore.
Effigy
re AS and that ridiculous interview on BBC North Britain this morning – Alex was expert, as usual.
As happened with Kate Garraway, he was asked a question requiring a detailed answer and whilst he was still answering it, they were asking him another question.
Rule number one – listen to the answer and then ask another question that develops that line. At least give the guest the respect and time to answer your question.
The inteviewers’ inexperience really shows up since in their excitement to get to the ‘real’ questions they want to ask , they interrupt more and speak quicker and more breathlessly
to try and chivvy things along.
We had the old chestnut of – I’ll ask you a third time, as you haven’t answered my question….. re the Skripal’s and did Alex think Russia was to blame at which point Alex, (like a frustrated tutor shaking his head in disbelief at the ineptness of the student in the spotlight) said that he was finding it increasingly puzzling to try and understand what all this had to do with his launch of the ALBA party and the Scottish election.
When Gary then said it was basically because Alex was a puppet of RT (my words)Alex pointed out that he makes his programme for an independent company which RT chooses to show on their channel. They have no editorial input and since Gary works at the BBC he must appreciate how lucky he is that a political programme can report freely and without any outside editorial input, as he surely experiences working in the BBC.
Game, Set and Match to Mr. Salmond.
We need so much more of this.
No wonder Nicola/Glen Campbell/BBC are describing him as ‘the Bogeyman’ today.
Like many, I see Brave New World having a bit of an edge on 1984 in the dystopian novel genre.
As critic Neil Postman put it;
“Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevence”.
“Watch me, as my Godlike words and countenance turn back the tide..”
2021 SNP Campaign Fund Appeal
Dear ( redacted)
The Scottish Election on May 6 is the most important in OUR lifetime.
If re-elected as your First Minister, I’ll do my best to steer Scotland safely through Covid.
Better days are ahead ********************************the SNP is ready to put OUR plans for recovery into action.
(Donate now. This is the most important election in Scotland’s history) Nicola Sturgeon
I think the SNP are trolling the people of Scotland, or they really are a bunch of cults.
Although after watching the launch by the Alba party I see they’re fully signed up to the identity politics guff. They’ve eased up on the support for trans women, be interested on their stance on trans men.
Lost interest when they went all in on women being the focus of policies, take it the other half of the population aren’t important.
.
After the nasty Halloween photos at the top of this page (thanks) Scary Stu., just posted here is some VERY good news and it’s all the front pages of the MSM in meltdown…
“DON’T VOTE FOR EVIL SALMOND, HE IS GUARANTEEING SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE IF YOU DO.
SCOTCHLAND, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.”
FFS these London based trumpets REALLY do not understand Scots. Hint to the creepy sweaty Express cunt who mumbled an unintelligible Unionist amateur trap question at the Alba Party press conference yesterday, a remarkably civil Alex Salmond gave a polite reply.
I struggle to comprehend how twisted those Unionist hacks are when, in such bare-faced hypocritical chattieness, they then throw their monkey-dung questions at Alex. Within 24 hours of so doing, the aforesaid hacks then spin what they think are clever PROJECT FEAR headlines.
To the creepy guy from the Express, oy “mate”, if look up the word “thrawn” in a dictionary, you will see a photo of a Scotsman.
At first glance this looks terrible. Then let the penny drop…
link to bbc.co.uk
Alex, and a political party now bigger than the LibDems may be banned by the BBC, but if anyone in Scottish civic society were unaware of the Alba Party, they sure as Hell know about it now.
Whatever your viewpoint, the average Joe and Johanna McGlumpher that doesn’t really do politics, but ALWAYS votes as well they should; those NON-anorak folk will see the headline.
DON’T VOTE FOR ALEX SALMOND, HE IS GUARANTEEING INDEPENDENCE.
I thought twice about posting this comment for fear these Amadans might moderate the ferocity of their Alba hating headlines. But FFS the cat is well out of the bag and on social media now 🙂
Many, many people will see just one thing….
We ain’t going for IndyRef2. If Alex Salmond and the Alba Party get into Holyrood, that means WE START NEGOTIATING FOR SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE THE VERY NEXT DAY.
Alex Salmond is a pure genius. As well as a world class statesman, he has really thought this through.
Thank you Alex.
SNP 1 (it will give you diahorrea but you need to VOTE shit for this to work).
Then…
ALBA 2
Who knows perhaps the people who did the graphics on that election broadcast are actually secret independence supporters. ‘Nicola will love having her boat race plastered all over the screen. She’ll think, “that’s exactly what I want more me”. Normal peeps on the other hand will be creeped out by the evil threatening dystopian imagery.’
Brought to you by Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum. Official sponsors of the New World Order.
No way am I voting for nazis.
For the few loan voices intending not to vote SNP 1.
I’d like nothing more than to not vote for my current SNP MSP, however apart from the Super-majority smart-strategy – the one Sturgeon loathes and fears – it’s also very possible that the SNP MSP you’re reluctant to vote for will, straight after the election, immediately jump ship to Alba – let’s see Sturgeon deal with that monumental slap in the dish/vote of zero-confidence.
No, we won’t know until it happens, but I’m sure we’ll see more than a few doing exactly that, and one of them could well be the guy/girl you’re advocating against.
SNP 1.
Alba 2.
Wee Willie says:
7 April, 2021 at 10:58 am
Throw the SNP out, and let Salmond build up the Alba Party to become the main force at Holyrood. Yes it might take some time…
I think that is the Plan Willie, but it’s Plan B, and it’s a contingency behind the Plan “A” Supermajority in May.
Right now, SNP1 and ALBA2 is the direct route to a fast and emphatic victory. Hopefully the SNP grassroots get’s the message and ignore’s Sturgeon’s both votes SNP mantra.
Maybe what we need now is for AUOB, YES, Now Scotland etc to come together and endorse the SNP 1 ALBA 2 strategy with confidence building enthusiasm. Share some of the heavy lifting for ALBA, circumvent the SNP “management” and hope there are enough exasperated YES foot soldiers within the SNP ranks to make the SNP1 ALBA2 strategy deliver the result we want.
Don’t forget, it isn’t actually the SNP we need to persuade. It’s the Scottish voter.
Good morning Scotland is clearly following a Westminster attack line on Alba. Scripal, RT, inappropriate conduct. Vary shallow on policies and tactics.
What really annoys me about BBC Scotland is the laughable and amateurish way they spout their propaganda. Garry Robertson should blush.
A passing thought on Boris rejecting any majority, he will be acting like Xi Jinping treating the people of Honk Kong!!!
Think about that Garry.
On top of all the Russian money flowing into the Conservative party think about Boris as a typical communist enforcer. Certainly, puts his famous speech about the scots in perspective.
“I would go further. The nation
Deserves not merely isolation
But comprehensive extermination.
We must not flinch from a solution.
There never seems to be a hate crime bill around when you need one.
Inspired by Al-Stuart, I thought I’d take a look at the BBC web site. Some headlines for you:
Labour unveil plans to create jobs for under 25s
Conservatives unveil plans to protect natural environment
Salmond wants independence talks in ‘week one’ of new Holyrood term
Labour have been planning to create jobs for the under 25s for as long as I can remember. As for the Tories that’s that’s about as likely as Boris is of telling the truth. The dismal BBC North Britain the dismal Unionists at their most dismal.
No planning for Alex, just doing.
@TNS2019 – “I am not sure that too many folk understand just how corrupted the ‘system’ has become over the last few years and the savage manner in which dissent is dealt with.
The SNP are running the country through control rather than governance and suppressing anything that does not appear to conform to their own dogma.
It is as close to totalitarianism as you can get”.
What you are talking about is the concept of ‘public protection’ and that requires honest and accountable law officers.
We don’t have that in Scotland just now where our law officers are regarded as figures of fun. Scottish law is now synonymous with ‘redactor pens’ and ‘John Swinney’.
We all have experiences to go-on and my experience this is as bad as it gets. This is worse than Saudi Arabia and worse than Africa.
You are more likely to be ‘supressed’ by the Scottish Government than you are by the Governments of either of those countries. Unfortunately, I am experienced enough to know what I am talking about.
The SNP missed a trick there as I thought it started of ok but they should have shown Westminster as Big Brother and SNP / Indy as the antidote. In the end its confusing as it just makes SNP look like Big brother #2.
I think NS and the core of the SNP know exactly what they’re doing with that piece. They think their ‘big guns’ are safe and are trying to lose constituency seats while not afraid to dump votes on the List.
It is now their only way to stop the super-majority. That is now their priority.
Don’t let them.
Stand Together SNP 1 ALBA 2
somerled says:
“I’ve said it before, if you vote SNP1 then you are voting for Sturgeon & her Cult to do whatever they want in the next 5 years. She will see EVERY SNP vote as a vote of confidence In her.”
Somerled, your entire post is the most sensible thing I’ve read in days. I genuinely can’t believe that people’s rush for independence (right now) outweighs the cost of living in an almost dystopian dictatorship where the country might be independent – but the individual is not.
The Joseph de Maistre quotation regards every nation getting the government it deserves springs to mind.
@Kenny 11.26 am
It depends where you live. I’m in Edinburgh central. I will not vote for Robertson under any circumstances. If that means Graham Campbell gets in on the list, it’s regrettable but still worth it to see Robertson defeated. Robertson and his ilk aren’t going to jump ship or defy the Sturgeonista Loyal.
It is of course more likely that unionists tactical voting and the Scottish Greens doing their usual thing and standing constituency candidates where they have no hope of winning (yet strangely being immune to criticism for splitting the pro-indy vote) will hand the seat to the Tories. Sooner that frankly than another seat which might contribute to an outright SNP majority!
Voters need to weight the odds. SNP 1 / Alba 2 makes sense in most locations, but there are good arguments to be made for tactical voting to surgically remove particular targets like Sturgeon, Swinney & stop ultra loyalists like Robertson.
Broadcast also reminds me of Fish video ‘credo’
@Lost
Yep, it’s the tried and trusted old “enemy without” line, re-bottled.
Fred and Somerled
I have two balls.
You can each suck on one of them.
Coupla loony unys in full panic mode right there
Sturgeon won’t be happy until she has full control over the entire population and even their thoughts. Let’s be honest, she has loved this pandemic and the control it has given her despite the fact that she has managed it poorly – BoJo’s incompetence has made her appear slightly better.
I cannot understand the mindset of someone like her but she must be psychopathic and so long as she is in charge of the SNP, it will be NO VOTES SNP from me – I couldn’t bring myself to give one iota of credence to her disgusting leadership and ideology of control and ‘we know what’s best for you’ attitude.
I hope the SNP perform terribly at the upcoming elections and it forces them to look very closely at their disgraceful policies and contempt of the Scottish people. Maybe they might just realize that Sturgeon is so toxic that she needs flushed out like the revolting turd she is.
@Breastplate
Here is the interview alluded to earlier with Alex Salmond on GMS:
link to bbc.co.uk
Starts approx 2h36m in and you’ll need a BBC login.
On a related note it’s an irritating trait when commenters say they’ve heard, watched, read this amazing thing and don’t provide a sodding link.
“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”
We were looking for the creator who is also the destroyer. Five more years of this and it will be too late. If we don’t kill it now independence is dead.
All governments are now in thrall to GlobSoc. All dance to the pseudo religious sentimental tune of the «mega influencers».and the latter day Covidian cultists who propelled by international organisms with zero democratic accountability dictate agendas, restructure and re-engineer in their own so perfected image.
Like this rewrite history from the «Scottish» Green party.
link to thenational.scot
What you seek to destroy you infect with the intellectual slavery of self-loathing.
Fortunately, before they burn the books, we still have real historical fact and evidence.
For those who haven’t seen it, there’s a superb interview with Alex on Scot Goes Pop.
There was a time, back in the days of Labour’s dominance when SNP PPBs – unlike last night’s scary crap – were often simple and homely. A wee playlet set around a kitchen table with two or three actors, maybe one of them a weel-kent face.
There would be a discussion about who they’d vote for. One character would be the unthinking Labour voter who’d never contemplated doing otherwise. “Ahm voting Labour, it’s always for the best”. The SNP supporter would reply by putting the benefits of indy. The Labour supporter, and maybe the third floating voter character, would scoff. The SNP voter would stand their ground. “Why keep oan voting Labour when things never change?”. Camera cuts to close up of the Labour guy starting to look thoughtful and slightly, almost imperceptibly, nodding.
Irony of ironies. It’s now, why vote SNP2 when it’ll never change things?
If you want to maximise ALBA, you have to vote SNP for your constituency vote.
It really is that simple, and it’s genius.
.
(Unless you are in Sturgeon’s or Swinney’s or Robertson’s constituency, obviously).
What a gloomy depressing 2 minutes watch that was.
What genius decided having some miserable girl walking around what looks like a derelict warehouse talking in a flat boring voice would inspire anything.
And then almost bizarrely she is talking in rhymes, what the actual fuck.
And really… having Sturgeon’s face appear like that is so ill judged it blows the mind. Who approved that dreary pish. Looks expensive as well.
No vision, no positivity, no plan. Usual pish.
Heaver
I agree on Glasgow Southside.
But Swinney is a wee snivelling prick and Robertson is just plain desperate.
As soon as they get back in the Chamber with Alex Salmond – they’ll baith be daen as theyr telt!
Was BBCGaryR asking AS as a member of the public what his opinion was over the Skripal poisoning or as someone privy to information we do not have?
Is AS still a privy council member? I very much doubt he gets sensitive briefings sent to him since he stepped down from politics last time. In fact, he is persona non grata since his programme was taken up by RT. So why the question? Is this a question in the McCarthyite tradition?
Paul Hutcheon adding to the Putin hysteria here:
link to twitter.com
So the tactics now are that AS is to be smeared as a Putin sympathiser because to deviate from the simplistic comical demonisation of Putin is to support him. No wonder we cannot have any proper debate in our media or politics with garbage like this spouted by snivelling scrotes like Hutcheon. It is pathetic, truly pathetic.
@shug says: 7 April, 2021 at 10:37 am
“Douglass Ross looks like losing 6 seats to George Galloway and his All For Unity Party set up by Michael Gove and George Galloway.”
It has fk all to do with Michael Gove – it’s being bankrolled by Jamie Blackett, a “liberatarian” mega landowning Laird of Arbigland and Part Of The Fking Problem whose notion of “Freedom” tends to that part of the Tory Party lampooned in Tom Robinson’s “Power In The Darkness”, ie. “Freedom from the likes of you!” and knowing one’s place, you peasant scum you!
I can well guess what he and Galloway REALLY have in common, let’s just say a certain old hatred that often makes for strange bedfellows …
I could barely believe this. What are they thinking
“Rev, just read an article on The Guardian where Alex Salmond’s position was (paraphrased) that a “supermajority” of pro-Indy MSPs would see opposition to a referendum melt away. Isn’t that basically what the SNP have been saying, for which you have roundly criticised them?”
Personally I don’t agree with him on that. I think there are only two possible positive outcomes of this election:
(1) the SNP don’t get a majority, but Alba get enough seats that the two are enough combined. Alba can then put down pro-indy motions and defy the SNP to vote against them.
(2) the SNP do get a majority, do nothing about independence and push all their woke bullshit. There would be nothing Alba could do about that (other than the above, but they’d have no leverage), but if they get a decent block of seats they could become a much-needed credible alternative indy party by the time of the next election.
Outcome (1) is quite a narrow window to hit, and it’s not one you can aim at tactically, you just have to hope you get lucky. We’re all cheered up by the arrival of Alba, but make no mistake – we’re in a bad situation, and if (1) doesn’t happen I think we’re absolutely definitely boned for at least five years. Even if it does happen we still might be, but it’s our only hope.
I absolutely see the logic of Alba advocating SNP1, but even with logic as my main driving force I don’t think I could bring myself to do it if I had a vote, because the danger if the SNP get a majority by themselves is just too enormous.
The only thing with any MORAL significance, meanwhile, is if indy parties get a majority of the VOTE. In that context I don’t think it makes any difference whether it’s 51% or 75% (and it’s not going to be 75% anyway). I don’t think getting 70% of the seats on 49% of the vote would carry any moral weight at all.
The argument against that is that Boris Johnson doesn’t give a shit about morals, and has a majority of seats on barely over 40% of the vote, so what’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
And that’s a perfectly fair argument – we live in Parliamentary democracies, in both Scotland and the UK, not representative ones. Number of seats, not number of votes, is what counts and the rules should be the same for both Parliaments.
But it doesn’t get us anywhere, because we’ve had a pro-indy majority of seats for the last five years, voted twice for a new referendum, and it achieved nothing because the SNP leadership refused to act on it. The only way that MIGHT change is if they need Alba’s support. But TBH I think we’re more likely looking at outcome (2) if we’re lucky.
I see there is an Ipsos Mori poll out with Alba on 3% of the list, with the Greens and Labour up 4% each on last outing.
Are the pollsters telling lies about Green support to try and divert 2nd votes there (‘if you’re annoyed with the SNP, then vote Green because they are 2nd pro-indy party, waste of time voting anyone else’)?
I am sorry but I refuse to believe that 12% of voters will vote Green on the list on the day. There is literally no reason for their vote to almost double from 6.6% last time. What have they done to deserve that?
Graeme @ 11.57
apologies if your comment about not providing ‘ a sodding link’ was aimed at me – but I don’t have a TV licence and cannot access any RADIO replay services provided by the BBC and so I am unable to provide a link.
However, you might notice that near the top of the thread @ 9.34 I did in fact provide a link for today’s readers so that they could watch the SNP PPB and contribute to this thread if they don’t have a TV.
We’re not being lazy, it’s just that people have various different set-up’s and have different levels of computer literacy e.g. I don’t know how to archive newspaper articles so I rely on others on this thread to archive something if I’ve flagged it up.
Bear with us, we can’t all be computer geeks.
Now you’ve heard it, what did you think about the interview?
Well folks I’ll give you some bad news, aimed at those who don’t ‘get’ or understand what that TV Commercial was all about.
Advertising is best understood as a code, only those who an Ad is aimed at will understand it, for those who don’t the Agency or Client isn’t bothered, it’s just not aimed at them.
This TV Commercial (for that is what it was in the guise of a PBB) was aimed at anyone in the age-bracket 16-30, it will have been researched and focus-grouped to the satisfaction of the Suits and signed off by the client.
That’s the way it works, sorry folks but your opinion doesn’t matter any more.
Let me give you a 2nd lesson. It’s the best definition of a Brand I ever heard – ‘A successful Brand is a complex (as in inter-related) set of satisfactions guaranteed.’
If you think of the SNP purely as a Brand, it’s in the process
of being destroyed by short-term tactical moves such as that TV Commercial.
Here endeth the lesson.
Your list idea is being used against you. Now that people understand it they will vote SNP1 and Green2.
Your idea only works if you have monopoly.
Stu, outcome 3.
An actual supermajority of indy msps call a snap plebiscite election.
Unlikely, but the chance is there, so, SNP 1, ALBA 2.
Alex’s strong recommendations to vote SNP on the Constituency and Alba on the List are brilliant.
Like most on here I am not happy with the SNP and expect that if Alba have a good number of MSPs, then, after the election there will be a rapid realignment, with many SNP MSPs giving open support to an early move to Independence.
The summer of 2022 would be a good time for a referendum.
To make this plan work we HAVE to follow Alex’s plan. SNP plus Alba. It won’t work any other way.
Good moment to mention that the Named Person Scheme has been partially resurrected as the Health and Wellbeing Census, and would alredy have been rolled out were it not for covid.
“When the questionnaire is fully implemented it will see pupils asked about, amongst many other things, their relationship with their parents or guardians, and their mental health. Putting aside whether these matters are in any way the business of the state, it raises the disturbing prospect of a situation where an overzealous or unwise official picks up on minor family difficulties or a lack of zest in a child and reports them as potential abuse or mental illness.
As Richard Lucas of the Scottish Family party, who calls the scheme ‘Named Person 2.0’ points out, there are a few disturbing details in the small print of the scheme’s documentation. You can opt out, but this is not made obvious. And nor is the fact that though ostensibly for ‘research’ purposes, information gleaned from the questionnaire can be passed on to ‘other approved organisations and researchers’. This seems to suggest that a gripe from a disgruntled teen could potentially lead to a knock on the door.”
From the Spectator.
Piss off Martini.
The ‘monopoly’ lies in ‘proposing routes to independence beyond a section 30’.
This cypher has been ruling by fiat for a year on behalf of Globalist banking cartels.
@Fireproofjim – If we all vote SNP on the constituency, then SNP have a strong working majority and things quickly go from bad to worse.
@Meg merrilees
It wasn’t aimed at you.
I thought the interview was a robust one. Salmond clearly set out why voters considering the Greens should move to Alba. He also set the scene for weighing the SNP’s balls for an indyref.
I’ve always been uncomfortable with Salmond lending his credibility to RT and it was fair for Gary Robertson to bring it up. GR/GMS now need to ask the same questions about Russian poisoning to every Tory they inyerview given how much funding their party gets from Putin-backed donors.
I am so persuaded by the SNP broadcast that I have decided to follow one of their main policies – self identification. From now on I no longer wish to be known as Merganser, instead please call me The Great Northern Diver.
Males and females are virtually indistinguishable; they like ducking and diving; and they may be referred to by their alternative name:
The Common Loon.
Just like whoever dreamt up this rubbish
The Alba party will have no power to stop her. Alex tried his best in the Inquiry but he failed and will fail again.
This is my fear, tbh. That ALBA succeeds in brining in loads more votes for the SNP (and maybe the Greens as well) but doesn’t secure enough itself to have any real effect on the increasingly dystopian policies they’re putting in place, or help push them towards independence. We’re at the point in Scotland where real change is desperately needed and if that doesn’t happen, the next five years could be truly awful and put an end to any hopes of independence. But if there is a huge SNP vote and an SNP-Green majority, Sturgeon will take that as a personal vote and become even worse. I’ll still give the SNP my first vote but *only* because my local SNP is a decent one. I have no desire whatsoever to give Sturgeon and the party a vote of confidence.
Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t scare me and neither does the SNP. I saw through them long ago and I know how criminally corrupt and sinister they are, no better than common thieves and gangsters who use blackmail and threats to get the power and wealth they want. I can sleep at night knowing that I will never lend that shower of bastards my support again and I will raise a dram or 10 when the Sturgeon leadership cabal face justice and are sent down for long prison sentences.
What does scare me are the people this political advert is designed to troll. Nicola Sturgeon knows she’s corrupt, she is well read enough to know the core message of 1984 and she also knows that her core support and even ol Alec Salmond, who in my view appears to have completely lost his marbles, will vote for her no matter what. There I was thinking that Alex Salmond would change back into the fold and take on Nicola Sturgeon, instead he wants to ride on her coat tails and be her patsy. His attempts to try and become her friend again after what she did to him are embarrassing.
This advert is just another spit in the face of every single person who has been let down by and stolen from by the SNP and lack the self respect to do anything else but vote SNP. She’s saying to all of them that “I Nicola Sturgeon am a corrupt totalitarian who has stolen from you, corrupted your government and legal system, removed your right to freedom of speech and this is only the beginning. I am even using this advert to show you where we are heading and you and the rest of my cult will always vote for me. You are stupid and I know it and I’m now even telling you that I know it. Vote for me you mindless fools.”
Well folks, I presume the general wings consensus is SNP1? Good luck with that. I’m lucky enough that I have done well enough that if it gets really bad I can leave the country; I hope the SNP 1 crowd have made similar contingency plans because it the SNP get back in Alex Salmond is not going to be able to do anything about it, he will end up as the new Patrick Harvie and Scotland will be finished.
SilverDarling says: at 10:45 am
“Project Fear – The Rise of Alba.”
Aye, you’re not far wrong. After a year of covid and lockdown one might have thought a bright, uplifting, inspiring and positive message and imagery for a future Scotland would resonate with folk better than that dark dystopian attempt.
Iain Lawson’s latest.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Strangely reminiscent of the Mc Ewan’s lager advert of the mid 1980s
When the workers trapped in the dystopian world are looking through a window into a bar then they roll the big round rock they have been pushing round and round right through the window .
As someone pointed out some of these moves that show a not so pretty future are in the most part a warning of things to come , and not a fkn blue print for the use of this SNP Mafia .
The fact is it’s our fault ,our fault for being so trusting they were on our side so they must be the good guys how fkn stupid we were , this whole sorry fkn mess is down to Sturgeon and her close circle I will never trust another bloody word she says I hope ALBA make use of them while they are of value ,after that toss the fkrs in the bin where they belong .
She has as a few have said Poisoned the Well I don’t know how deeply the rot goes and sometimes it’s better just to cut the infestation out completely there is probably not much worth saving a bottom up rebuild but it might be hard to identify the ones who caused the problem in the first place ,it’s probably been the mass influx of supporters after 2014 we don’t know who has come on board, strangely the same problem affected the Labour Party maybe it’s just moved party’s
Keep burying your head in the sand @martin
You old people have no spunk or fight.
“It is to Madame Justice that I dedicate this concerto, in honor of the holiday that she seems to have taken from these parts, and in recognition of the impostor that stands in her stead.”
People keep making the mistakeof thinking that Bozo is in competently stumbling and bumbling making up shit as he goes along while the truth is that his Government has been stringing the public along continually changing the goalposts on Lockdowns and using an emergency situation to institute the most draconian system of surveillance and control we have ever experienced as a people. The Government seeks to micro managed our lives. Does anyone believe Government will just hand back Liberty? If you do believe that maybe you believe in the section 30 Unicorn? Governments are far too keen to make us take untested vaccines for my liking. I will not be manipulated by Government or NHS into taking part in a gene therapy experiment. Any Doctors reading this should remember the Nuremberg Code.
This will be played on the hour every hour in the workcamps for those guilty of wrongthink.
I’d say anything over 65 MSPs is a majority so more would be a supermajority, well in my book anyway.
We can only hope that the ALBA party returns enough seats to influence Sturgeon’s unmoving position on Scottish independence. If as I expect Sturgeon puts down the idea of any Plan B after the 6th of May elections, using umpteen economic excuse etc, then we know where she stands on independence and more to the point so will the public.
Again if Alex Salmond gets elected, I’m sue he’ll put to Sturgeon that being in this union is the crux of the down turn on the Scottish union, and it has been for over 300 years.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
7 April, 2021 at 9:03 am
I’m terribly sorry, there’s a mistake in the above post. This is the actual broadcast. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Baaahahahahahahaha!!!! 😀
I watched the start of that clip with Zack de la Rocha reading the words.
Needless to say, Cosyfeet thought the PPB was “fantastic”.
“Governments are far too keen to make us take untested vaccines for my liking.”
We have 30-40 deaths per day in the UK at the moment. We once had more than a thousand per day. Brazil currently has 4000 per day. Europe is experienceing a third wave more virulent than the first two waves.
For me anyway, these are the results I look at.
Labour focus on jobs for the unemployed?
In Wales where Labour have been in power for
21 years the latest unemployment rate I can find is 4.5 %.
In Scotland it’s 4.1%.
So why would we put Labour in power with lame ideas
that will deliver greater unemployment?
The make the same stupid statements on the NHS here.
We operate a vastly superior service to Labour NHS Wales.
Vote Labour in Scotland and make everything worse!
Vote Tory and have nothing left to make worse.
Sickening SNP 1 Alba 2 to steer us out of SNP troubled waters.
For those who rightly refuse to go through the iPlayer registration wall, someone’s stuck it on YouTube already.
There’s only a handful of seconds of full on Shortbread Stalin mode. It’s mostly the ABC1-accented Millennial Bonnie Lass character reciting the catechisms of F1-key anti Toryism to swelling music. It is in effect a Green Party production. There’s almost nothing here that looks like it’s meant to play well to anyone in Drumchapel or Easterhouse.
They may as well fore-title it as “A party political broadcast intended for all the voters they don’t take for granted, on behalf of the Scottish National Party“
@Republicofscotland 12.59pm
Holyrood’s own rules on voting define a supermajority as two thirds. That’s 86 out of 129. To call new elections we’d need an additional 16 pro-indy MSPs on the current total.
As Stu and others including myself have been pointing out for some time, this only works if Alba hold the balance of power. An SNP majority or SNP/Green gradualist coalition condemns us to 5 more years of pounding the same rocks we’ve been pounding for the past 6 years.
Take the first step and get ALBA into the Scot Parliament with a super majority.
Declare the Sovereign Will of the people to terminate the T.o.U. as a result of severe breaches of the Treaty (Brexit +)and the refusal of WM to relinquish their perceived entitlement to rule alone.
HE21 SNP-1 ALBA-2 😉
Independent:
HE22-26 ALBA-1 Anyone else-2 🙂
Haha, that set looks pinched from The Ipcress File where Harry Palmer is tortured in the chair on the podium. Why else is it there? In the film he is brainwashed in the chair.
I think the producers are sending us a subliminal message. Also notice the stacked up TV’s are old cathode ray sets – which definitely situates it in Big Brother territory, the bakelite and valve era. Is that what they are trying to convey about Chairman Nicola, Big Sister and thoughtcrime?
I can’t believe they actually thought this was a good idea, since it looks like a parody of cold war films. There is no policy, as usual, except blood curdling descriptions of Westminster, with the promise that we can ‘send them a message’ – with no expectations that this will change anything. Yes, that’ll show them.
What a curious pop video/horror film. Is this what they really meant, or did some overpromoted teenage media studies graduate come up with what they thought was ‘cool’ imagery?
Hilarious. Just consider that this is a party and a politician (none other is mentioned) that thinks it is good at communication. And this is what they come up with. A cheap student short with no content, just recycled imagery which doesn’t mean what they think it means. Facepalm.
Looks like the advise appears to be ‘every body likes you, you are doing a good job on the pandemic, women prefer you to Salmond’. All based on polls!
Mention IndyRef2, to keep them onside or else they’ll vote for that horrible party, ALBA.
Come on Private Eye.
Dish the dirt.
Sturgeon is not going quietly.
LOL!! It’s shite beyond words and to think, somebody got paid to make that!!
This is pure fascist 1984 totalitarian allegory.
The music, the backdrop, the multiple television screens, the background image of the silent Supreme Leader.
This was a party broadcast unlike any broadcast ever seen before.
Dark dark minds conjured this up.
Ian Mac, you are confirming what Isaid above. You are absolutely spot-on in your summary and so is everyone else (the Commercial is what we used to call ‘Derivative Crap’) but you and the others are I would imagine over 30, with life experience and some discernment?
Unfortunately however the Target Market is not you or I.
How much easier, and better for Scotland it would be, if Sturgeon won a “once in a lifetime” round the World cruise, and just fked off out the way, and quite literally disappeared on a slow boat to China for a few months. Maybe Australia would even keep her.
After six years of stagnation, she has nothing to give, nothing to offer, no progress whatsoever to show us in 6 dreadful years, not a single strategic initiative in her armoury, and all the charisma of a fugitive expecting to get their collar felt any minute. Her legacy is an SNP acrimoniously divided and exasperated, a Scottish Government, a Scottish Parliament, Civil Service and Legal Fraternity all demeaned, humiliated and compromised by her bitter incompetence… and she thinks SNP1 is a vote of confidence in her??? It’s laughable.
Sturgeon wouldn’t know what to do with a supermajority if she got one, but Alex Salmond would. And that, I think, is the point.
Usually a new PPB is shown throughout the campaign. I think pushing that one out several times will be a big, big mistake.
The SNP will recover after the gender woo-woo clique have gone.
In the meantime Vote SNP1/Alba2 to help the process along.
Those photos at the top of the article should make a lot of SNP voters think twice about giving her their list vote. They want Independence not a scary Cult leader.
How about the SNP get a majority and then lose that majority as several MSPs cross over to ALBA.
Just for the laughs.
Roddy Dunlop QC went onto Twitter this morning to mock it, very carefully.
link to twitter.com
Think he had his bellyful of the Murrells and their Praetorian Guard?
Any Ellis @1.15pm.
I’m of the opinion that a healthy majority shouldn’t need to be 86 seats, we might be setting targets we cannot reach, a majority in my opinion should be enough.
But of course we need the ALBA party to do well.
When are we expected to chant at the screen “ we love big sister”. I hope the people of Scotland can see through this none sense. I’m not so sure that the brain washed Sturgeonistas will.
Andy Ellis
Is your glass always half empty?
You push the negative on every article.
We have a plan. You have grumps.
Are you being paid for that?
Ever since Covid (and before, but we’ll start at Covid) the current SNP has been about ‘I’m with Nicla’, our Dear Leader. All the eggs in the presidential style basket.
Support for Indy increased based on her Covid – ‘look at me I care, and I’m human’ – personna.
I haven’t seen the PPB by the SNP, but from the comments, it sounds gloomy, impersonal and creepy, 1984, dystopian rip off.
Very much the opposite of the previous ‘trust in Nicla’ brand that they’ve spent 6 years building.
So why. Who are they aiming that at.
One impression I’m forming is that in this election, pretty much no-one is giving a hoot about the former No voters opinion. No-one is trying to convert their votes from no to yes.
And that makes sense – given current polling showing the SNP in line to take nearly all the Constituency seats, if over 25% of the previous list SNP votes convert to Alba – bingo – Indy supermajority. The Unionists opinion won’t matter.
So, priority number 1 (if they can’t oust Alex) is to get Nicla to spike the SNP Constituency vote. Scupper the supermanjority that way. (Ideally they’ll want to keep her in place, in Holyrood, with the largest party, but no majority. Keep her in place, keep her spiking the guns.)
That gives us, proactive Indy pushers 2 things to plan for.
From memory I think there was a 10% chunk of No voters – who didn’t want Brexit. They need a new home. I don’t think we should be forgetting about them.
And rSNP, (particularly the Constituency Candidates) are going to need us in Alba, to get them elected. Some serious wool will need to be pulled from eyes first.
At the moment, the polls indicate, that if SNP take the bulk of Constituency seats – all their list seat votes are null and void.
Which makes voting SNP 1 essential – not because of the seat they get, but because it potentially enables 4 Alba Candidates on the list.
But what happens if, nearer voting day, the polls show, overwhelming switch on the list from SNP to Alba. From the way he’s talking, that is what Alex is aiming for.
If that comes to pass, then tactically not voting SNP 1 – (in certain seats – very few I might add) might become an option. But at the moment it is too soon to tell, and its not something Alba could ever publically encourage.
And Alba – we need to get you visible. We need posters, leaflets, slogans, policies, etc.
Get them up on your website and enable us to home print. Then every car is a billboard. Every window.
I was in Dundee yesterday (Hilltown) I never even saw a yes sticker, never mind an Alba one. (Never saw any SNP ones either).
We are in a better place than we were a few months ago, but it helps to see what the opposition is up to and plan ahead.
It beggars belief that Sturgeon is so confident of victory that she can sanction this broadcast.
She is putting two fingers up at the electorate thinking that they will vote for her regardless.
She is coming across as some kind of fiddling Nero.
Shocked that the SNP cult managed to indoctrinate Rab C.
I think we should crowdfund an extraction team to do an intervention.
I can’t help thinking that the this is deliberately linked to the attacks on Alex Salmond re Russian interventions , is Russia now to be painted as the Holyrood election bogey man?
Andy Ellis says:
7 April, 2021 at 11:40 am
@Kenny 11.26 am
It depends where you live. I’m in Edinburgh central. I will not vote for Robertson under any circumstances.
Reply
I may be wrong but it looks like Robertson is also on the list vote just under Campbell.
link to archive.vn
Daisy Walker
I already have Alba Stickers on ma windies.
They maybe not the Alba logo as per party but they do.
Ebay you can get the oval ones in a couple of days. Mines already been up a week!
Another way of looking at the SNP Constituency vote (for those who are struggling – of which I am one) is this.
If I elect an SNP Constituent – by doing so I prevent (or vastly reduce the chances of) any more SNP getting a seat on the list.
And by voting Alba on the list, I can potentially get 4 Alba’s elected.
That’s a ratio I can hold my nose and vote for.
@Republicofscotland 1.15 pm
A majority and a supermajority are different things. To call fresh elections only a supermajority will do (or the government would have to resign and no majority be found for a new FM in which case the PO is obliged to call new elections within 14 days I think?). A majority in a plebiscitary election would be enough if it constitutes > 50 % of the vote.
@TheSNPLeftMe
What about my posts is it you’re disputing? You can howl at the moon all you like but it won’t change facts. It’s not negative to point out the facts. If you’re happy with comforting lies rather than hard truths, carry on. Take off your tin foil hat and get real: zoomers like you finding MI5 plants and paid informants everywhere give the movement a bad name. If you think happy clappy positivity is going to waft us to the sunny uplands of independence you’ll end up as disappointed as we were in 2014.
Re Russia Bad – seriously, I can’t see anyone in Scotland getting excited about that.
Not since the Klondykes left Ullapool was that a thing – and even then, everyone knew they were spying, what really ripped folks knitting was the fact they were hoovering up all the fish.
‘mon the Russians.
Daisy Walker says:
7 April, 2021 at 1:43 pm
“And Alba – we need to get you visible. We need posters, leaflets, slogans, policies, etc.”
I managed to print out the logo on A4 and have laminated a few for display in windows and car windows. I’m seeing loads of SNP posters and SNP 1&2 notices but nobody else for Alba yet. I haven’t put any up for SNP because I’d be too embarrassed to answer some of the difficult questions that their actions are posing but will probably vote SNP in the constituency A) because we have one of the supposed “good guys” and B) in order to help Alba gain a seat – although I’m in the South so not sure if tactically it will work here.
Roddy Dunlop is not one of the phalanx of political/legal arseholes that have blighted this country in recent months. He has a sense of humour and a brain and uses both quite normally, as we all should.
@thesnpleftme
You don’t have a plan you have hope. Things are far worse than you are letting on.
Andy Ellis @1,56pm.
Andy.
Thanks for the reply, however I don’t recall (maybe it my memory that’s going) Alex Salmond mention the 86 figure yesterday, and Jeggit, appears to say the figure required is 72 to 74.
The Times newspaper did name a high figure the other day, but I recall Alex Salmond shoot it down and say we cannot let the media set the tone.
link to randompublicjournal.com.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people on here decry the SNP as a corrupt cesspit of immorality and dictatorship, yet still proclaim they will vote for them in the May elections.
Is independence in the short term more important than having morals and a government that is fit to run a country? Or are you prepared to put up with 5 more years of being lied and dictated to by the current shower of shit running the show, in the vain hope they will do as they say on independence, and improve the lives of Scottish people?
An election funding appeal has just dropped through my letterbox.
Looks very much like Nicola and Murrell are running short of money and are maybe thinking about trying to put the missing £600k back. ( alternatively this could be the front to cover the tracks of the receipt of some dark money in return for keeping Murrell and a Sturgeon out of pokey )
Anyway, the letter has just prompted me to make another donation to Alba, and for anyone else receiving a similar letter can I suggest that it becomes their prompt to send some money to ALBA.
LETS GET OUR SUPER MAJORITY AND TOGETHER WITH ALBA, AND THE DECENT SNP MEMBERS WE’LL GET OUR COUNTRY AND MOVEMENT BACK ON TRACK.
As students’ first video projects go, I thought it was pretty good. The actress on all thon tellys was particularly good.
Well cast. Very convincing. Her ability to project total self-belief was very well achieved.
I sense she could spout any old crap and people would believe it.
Craig Murray warned what was going to happen re Salmond & Russia two days ago.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
SNP seem to be up to their eyeballs in it with MI5’s assistance. No real surprise there TBH.
Big mistake I’m afraid by Alex Salmond today. He refused four times to answer when asked if Russia was behind the Salisbury poisonings. I suppose he was caught between a rock and a hard place. I’m sure he needs the money paid by Russia Today,but it’s not a good look prevaricating in this way. Galloway is also taking Russian money.
Craig Murray has good article up.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Mr Blue Skye.
Not all SNP are bad. I know that and you know that. The SNP does however have a leadership coteries that is utterly rotten and needs changed.
Securing a supermajority comprising both SNP and ALBA will allow the SNP to realign. Voting SNP in the constituency and ALBA is a fantastic strategy. So let us not undermine the SNP electorally unless you really want conservative and Labour MSPS and less ALBA MSPS.
The control of Sturgeon and the coterie will be gone In the days after the election. Of that there is no doubt. And we will have our super majority, our supercharged Parliament, empowered to commence negotiations for and on behalf of Scotland.
A majority parliament recognised in the eyes of the world. A majority Parliament not just led by a minority or micro majority SNP, but a Parliament with a thumping SNP and ALBA majority.
As for Nicola Sturgeon events will have moved on. Yesterday’s woman, we have better to look forward too.
Looks like George Orwell has another reason to be proverbially spinning in his grave. It’s like we’re slipping into some kind of communist dictatorship nightmare that he and others warned about. Dear Leader is everywhere! Dear Leader must be obeyed! No thanks.
How long until Stuart and the rest of us are “unpersoned” and just airbrushed out of the records for daring to have wrongthink against the Party? Will there be mandatory minutes of hate against him or others who tried to have independent independence groups?
If you’ve lived in Eastern Europe under communism (and the earlier the moreso) then seeing this stuff will scare you shitless with bad flashbacks, believe me. What the hell are you doing, Scotland? Any party that gets all excited over this kind of thing is NOT someone who should be near power at all! You want decent normal people who don’t fantasise about being some grand ruler or treating people as pawns or sheep.
We’ll see the same authoritarianism, cronyism, and rampant corruption as other times countries have sadly slipped into this. It all too often slowly creeps in with a whisper before you even know it.
@Vestas
You could have a point.
The Murrells clearly have much to hide and so are compromised and thus subject to blackmail from the forces you suggest.
On the other everything about Salmond is out in the open and so he can’t be manipulated.
@Mr Blue Sky
These are the same people who say they are voting SNP 1 because they don’t want the SNP to get in on the list (what the utter fuck!?) , or they’re voting SNP1 to hold Nicola’s feet to the fire (aye right), I’m not voting for Nicola Sturgeon but the local candidate (you are voting for Nicola Sturgeon), SNP1 Alba2 means Alex Salmond will hold the balance of power (no he won’t, he’ll be as relevant as Patrick Harvie is now) ad infinitum…
The only explanation I can see is that they have been so psychologically conditioned by the cult recruiting team built by Stephen Noon in the run up to 2014 that they have lost all ability to think rationally; the party must come first.
If after years of blatant SNP corruption and criminality being exposed and our rights and freedom of speech being taken away these people still think voting SNP is the answer I doubt they will ever be able to think for themselves again, but I live in hope. They surely can’t all be lost.
If enough of us vote SNP, then we open the gates of Hell. Anyone looking-on from outside Scotland at the Alex Salmond investigation will be astonished if an educated populace such as the Scots vote them back in again.
I respect Alex Salmond for what he has done in the past but he is not infallible. Does he actually believe that a ‘supermajority’ will make Boris Johnson ‘crumble’, because I don’t believe that. Do you?
I have seen the effects of political and legal malfeasance over the term of this parliament and what it does to the victims. Alex Salmond can take Leslie Evans back to Court and the fandango continues. Maybe Alex gets some satisfaction out of that but the rest of us just want it to stop.
By all means vote Alba on the list but if you vote for SNP on the constituency vote, then you are voting for a continuation of Sturgeon, Swinney, Murrell, Wolffe and Yousaf. That’s the way I look at it….is there any other way?
Wee Willie @ 2.17pm.
Alex was right not to answer that question the Russians didn’t do it, if you’d been following Craig Murray’s extensive reports on it you would know better.
Of course half of the politicians at Westminster have received funding from Russian oligarchs.
@Republicofscotland 2.06 pm
Chapter 11 of the standing orders of Scottish parliament:
“11.11.4. A super-majority means that the number of members voting for a proposition is at least two-thirds of the total number of seats for members of the Parliament.”
Even if we subtract PO’s vote, leaving 128 MSPs that gives you 85 for a supermajority (128 x 0.67).
As Jeggit points out in his piece, you can’t hold out a supermajority as (necessarily) the settled will of the people because it won’t necessarily represent >50% of those voting making the choice specifically on an independence mandate. BUT, if a supermajority gained in May is used to dissolve parliament and hold fresh elections asking for a specifically plebiscitary mandate, then it is hard to see how the international community could refuse to recognise a victory for pro-indy parties which was clearly approved by >50% of voters.
@Willie
Sorry to say this but you are completely deranged if you think that. Even with a minority Sturgeon has utterly destroyed government, justice and freedom in Scotland. Give Sturgeon a majority she will finish the job and Alex Salmond will be a complete irrelevance. As long as sturgeon’s hands are on the tiller the SNP is done and the only way her hands will be removed is by ensuring that not only she loses her seat but the SNP suffers a crushing defeat. Then we have a conference, the membership revolts and the whole rotten stinking sturgeon Murrell axis of evil is removed… and that means all current MP’s and MSP’s need to go. If they haven’t broken ranks now and spoken out then they are in on it.
Who needs MI5 to stab Scotland in the back, when you have SNP MPs such as Stewart McDonald and Alyn Smith who’ll do it for them.
The former is already attacking Alex Salmond for not saying the usual shit “The Russians Did It”
McDonald and Smith are full blown careerists, who don’t give a shit abut Scotland never mind independence.
@ Republicofscotland
There is no way you can say the Russians didn’t do it.Do you know more than the police and the security services? If so you ought to enlighten them. Perhaps we could agree on this then. Russia is no friend of the U.K., and that includes Scotland. I can’t believe that Russia Today is not a propaganda organ of the Russian State. As for taking money from Russian oligarchs, that’s no excuse. Taking money from disreputable sources is bad. It leads to sleaze and corruption whether it’s Tory politicians or anyone else.
With this video, First Minister, you are trolling us. ( Not spoiling – unless in the sense of ‘trashing’ the cause of independence.)
It really does appear that she wants to diminish the number of SNP MSPs even if it means undermining her own party’s election chances. Anything to avoid actually carrying out the SNP’s supposed mission. It really is getting even more disturbing, if anything. Who could be behind such a project, I wonder?
Is she just stupid, misguidedly following the ‘advice’ of shadowy figures in the background or is she fully cognizant of the damage she is causing, with everything she has done over the past few years? Division within the indy movement would appear to be the goal.
@Andy Ellis – Once we have an honest and accountable parliament, then by all means call for a ‘specifically plebiscitary mandate’.
If we are seeking to jail political opponents in Scotland on trumped-up charges using patsies, then we are still a million miles away from that.
I think that in Swinney and Wolffe, we have a pair of political-legal functionaries that belong very far away from any European democracy. Would you not agree?
I think it’s all too late.
I handed in my membership in 2016 when it became obvious what direction of the SNP was, since the for the vast majority of Indy supporters(not the alert who reside here) things were chugging along just fine and the Covid pandemic just another chance to show the blessed Nicola in complete control.
I agree with the few who say destroy the “pigs” and let us turn the farmyard back into something to be proud of.
The Rev is on a mission, and he is an absolute hero, but the crux of the issue has gone beyond “independence” now or at sometime in the future and concerns our personal rights and freedoms Bacon rolls anyone?
Recurring theme of SNP corrupt don’t vote for them.
So you suggest we let in the Unionists by default then.
Let Westminster rule over Scotland and let us be abused for the next 300 years.
Let them keep our revenue, let them remove our deceived powers and parliament,
Let them continue to sell every U.K. assert with the NHS the next in line.
Do you want to be governed by Boris the pathological liar and serial adulterer who admits to
hating Scots and who would always invest in England before Scotland?
Your choice is a temporary apprentice of evil in a parliament Scotland can control
or the Masters of Evil in Westminster who can do whatever they like to Scotland for evermore.
Get on with choking if you want to be the only plan on Salmond’s table is
SNP 1 and Alba 2.
Mr Blue Sky says:
7 April, 2021 at 2:06 pm
So what do we do? We are in the same situation as the Yanks were with Biden and Trump so the people vote for what they see as the lesser of two evils. None of the Unionist parties would do any more for the people of Scotland than the SNP will. We at least have the hope that some might cross the floor to Alba after being elected.
Only Nicola can keep us safe, Only Nicola has the ultimate wisdom. No need to worry, no need to think, send you votes our way and have a toast of victory gin to the supreme leader.
Apparently some jitters on twitter re Alba polling 3% again.
Already someone with Alba as their avatar, saying maybe Alex should be replaced, that I believe will be a paid troll.
Make no mistake AS will get dissed and fake Alba supporters will mix it.
It seens that SNP are on to win maj in constituency alone.
I do not want them getting an outright majority, we will be stuffed if they do.
Also according to a poll,70% trust the SNP.
I know Johann L didn’t mean what she said “We’re not genetically programmed in Scotland to make political decisions’, but if that 70% poll is correct, so is JL.
I will not vote SNP 1, I’ve heard all the srguments but cannot bring myself to do so.
Strong nerves will be rqd for the next 4 weeks.
@effigy
Total tax revenue raised in Scotland 2020 was £65 Billion.
Total Westminster spending on Public Sector in Scotland £75 Billion
Overall Scotland is in deficit and funded by the rest of the U.K. taxpayers.
What Scottish revenue is Westminster keeping?
@Captain Yossarian
I want independence sooner rather than later. We can’t afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As Rev Stu said up thread, we may have no option but to wait for 2026 elections if the SNP or SNP/Greens win a majority. I’m not prepared to wait decades so we can reform the body politic or vaccinate ourselves against the institutional corruption which has become apparent in recent years.
We need to use Alba as the catalyst to ensure independence is gained, whether by indyref2 or plebiscitary elections. Accounts can be settled with those who have tried to subvert our democratic institutions and parliament afterwards.
I’m thinking he should start addressing himself as Alexander. It won’r be long before they are pointin out how similar he is to Alex Jones.
They have the same name and body type.
Alexander is a stronger brand image.
Oh for Christ sake Wee Willie, the Skripals were supposedly poisoned by Novichok one of the most deadly poisons in the world yet both survived, and both we miraculously found on a park bench by the Chief Medical officer of the British army who just happened to be walking by the bench they we sitting.
You might buy that gullible shit, but plenty of folk who know how the British security state players work don’t.
Andy Ellis 2.25pm.
Thanks for the reply.
@Andy Ellis – Robin McAlpine was a neighbour of mine. What he said was: ‘You cannot build anything on top of rotten foundations’.
Once independence is granted, we need a fully functioning and honest government straight away, otherwise we become a ‘banana republic without the bananas’.
Jim Sillars said the more or less the same, didn’t he: ‘The toxic tentacles of the SNP are poisoning all of our civic bodies’.
They have a brass-neck asking us to vote for them. Independence any time soon would be disastrous.
Regarding the Unionists taking control, the majority of the English electorate do not give a flying F**K about Scotland and “The Union” now inspires none but a few old men with military moustaches. Get it out of your head that there is some dastardly plot afoot…..All this shite is of our own making and only we Scots can fix it. We cannot even make a start till the hierarchy of the SNP and many of their elected supporters are removed from power. Any members who sit in Holyrood with eyes, ears and mouths closed are part of the problem morally and politically bankrupt.
We can’t afford to take prisoners.
Mac says:
7 April, 2021 at 1:36 pm
How about the SNP get a majority and then lose that majority as several MSPs cross over to ALBA.
Just for the laughs.
Don’t laugh. I’m kinda hoping for that to happen. If not actually happen, then at least have some leverage by threatening to….
Iain Macwhirter ..
link to archive.ph
Is Scotland real? I have been thinking about whether it is just a social and psychological construct.
John Lennon was right. Imagine there’s no countries..
The far left/Communists don’t see anything wrong with this broadcast.
It’s also why they cant let go of COVID.
When I clicked on the 2 minute hate – it was a bit like those losing their shit over someone not wearing a face mask in shops.
Funny.
@Yossarian 2.58 pm
I have some sympathy for the view and agree whole scale reform is needed “ab initio” but we need to be pushing for action in the next Holyrood session if the circumstances being discussed above permit, or if we are stymied by a gradualist majority until 2026 elections we need to be setting up Alba as an alternative force to take constituency as well as list seats.
The SNP won’t deliver independence any time soon, so your worry about that is misplaced in my view. The only way it happens this decade is if the SNPs stranglehold is broken, either by Alba or by a palace coup inside the SNP. I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of MSPs and MPs defected to Alba post May elections. It must be giving the Sturgeonistas sleepless nights.
The imagery reminds me more of V For Vendetta, personally. Which is still appropriately dystopian.
link to comicextra.com
I dunno. Cold light of day. Do think this is remotely credible?
A Party Election Broadcast, so literally styled on 1984’s Big Brother? REALLY?
It’s got to be a piss take hasn’t it? No self respecting PR rep could really be that much of an imbecile. I refuse to believe it. Media and video is their business for goodness sake. They would know!
It’s not a piss take on us, the punters, it’s got to be somebody ripping the piss at the SNP’s expense, surely?
And NOBODY (because this was presumably approved by somebody), thought “umm, hang on a wee minute…”???
Spidey senses tingling again. We’re being played here.
I was craving a bit of self-righteous indignation today, so I searched on YouTube for “snp party political broadcast 2021”. The first two hits were for Tory party propaganda, the video studiously not posted here was 5th. Shenanigans.
I wish I could vote Alba (al-Bb, I’m a Scot, not a Gael) on the constituency too.
Cameron McNeish backs Alba for Regional List vote.
link to twitter.com
FlakBlag. Yeah i noticed that as well.
Whether I vote SNP 1, or not, or even 1000 after reading Wings, is unlikely to make a difference. How the electorate as a whole perceives the situation in the run up to 6th May will determine the primary outcome. MSM benevolence to SNP is a major factor. Benevolence will probably decline if the polls start to suggest the supermajority is in any way realistic.
Alba visibility is key. The immediate need for this is prior to postal votes. Car and windy stickers. Voter apathy could be countered if the electorate catch on to the prospect of causing an upset.
As Mac has suggested, post election defections SNP to Alba offer a route to Alba gaining a balance of power. Some SNP will be marginally elected on the basis of Alba recommendation in any case.
List Vote Alba
Last Vote SNP
Scotland West, Voting ALBA gets rid of Ross Greer !
@TheSNP
You may want to tell some of your reps to calm down and not be so bitter and hostile towards individuals who are planning to vote SNP1 and Alba 2.
You don’t own my vote. Just sayin’…
‘The SNP won’t deliver independence any time soon, so your worry about that is misplaced in my view’.
What I am saying is: ‘don’t vote for them, then; vote for someone else’.
The Salmond case and the way our ancient legal system was ‘gamed’ using compliant patsies in order to get him, has become understood all over Europe.
Do you think that would have happened in any other country in the world?
For heavans sake, I remember when David MacLetchie was bagged from Holyrood for scamming taxi expenses.
Breeks – okay, I’ve tried to be polite here in explaining what’s going on with the SNP PBB TV Commercial. For the hard ofunderstanding, they (The brains behind this Commercial) are working to a brief that doesn’t give a rat’s ass for the opinion of anyone
other than the target market because they take for granted thefact that anyone over 30 and Indysupporting will vote SNP anyway. They literally don’t carea fig what you and 90% of the other people on this website think because they take your vote for granted. And in most cases they are correct. It would be comical if it was not so tragic.
Looking at the Ipsos poll it shows the SNP regional vote down by 9%. Which shows that the “vote SNP on the list is a wasted vote” message has cut through fairly dramatically.
4% of it has gone to the greens, 3% to Alba, 2% elsewhere to Labour most probably.
So it is clear that Alba need to go after those transferring their list vote to the Greens. The Greens constituency vote went down by 1% so it is unlikely that they are becoming more popular.
akenaton says:
7 April, 2021 at 2:59 pm
Regarding the Unionists taking control, the majority of the English electorate do not give a flying F**K about Scotland and “The Union” now inspires none but a few old men with military moustaches. Get it out of your head that there is some dastardly plot afoot…..All this shite is of our own making and only we Scots can fix it.
A large amount of it is of our own making but it would be very naive not to believe that the security services aren’t meddling in our affairs. What the English electorate thinks is of no consequence. Just look at what’s been done to other oil rich countries around the globe by the US and UK – and this one hosts their nukes too.
Good grief, 1984 and they don’t even realise.
@Yossarian 3.46 pm
As I already explained I won’t be voting for them, I’m voting Alba 2 and probably Bonnie Prince Bob 1. However it’s still likely many will dutifully vote SNP because they’re just not that politically involved. The secret will be in persuading enough of the circa 1 million wasted SNP list votes to try and break the mould by voting for Alba. That may work or it may not. Time will tell.
We can’t do anything about your other issues without the power to force changes.
Yes, of course this could happen in other countries. Doubtless ordinary folk in Belarus and Myanmar consider our issues relatively trivial in comparison with their situations.
Tackling problems wi the our legal system and governance in general isn’t something we can do first. I’m unclear what it is that you’re actual proposing or what timescale you think it will be achieved in? It’s certainly not going to happen with the current SNP leadership which behaves as a glorified crime family.
“An actual supermajority of indy msps call a snap plebiscite election.”
That would require the cooperation of the SNP.
Dan @3.46
You do realise that is a double edged sword, it works both ways.
I would gladly give my second vote to Alba if I knew that less Wings supporters were not voting SNP or actually voting anti independence on their first vote.
I have not seen much sign of this.
BTW any more retired elderly ex provasts joined Alba today.
The Skirpals were costing Russia nothing.
They had already talked all the talk they knew.
Worthless waste of time for Russia to go after them
How much would a nice house in Salisbury be for the
Government to buy him and how much per week do they
pay him to live off until he expires?
A damn lot more per week than our war hero pensioners would
ever get and that’s for sure.
Russia would be pretty stupid to use a toxin only they are known for
so it’s probably been an expenditure cut back that one have disposed of
a hole in their finances.
History proves beyond doubt that Westminster has always been happy to
Murder on any scale if the finances are right.
Alex says.snp1 alba2,
That’ll do for me. Except sturgeon, swinney, pishfart or robertsons constituencies.
Lol, just been watching one of those Janey Godley/Tracy Ullman parody videos where they send up oor Nicola……hold on……what?………you serious?…….that wasn’t a parody? Dearie me. Dearie, dearie me.
akenaton @ 2:59 pm
“Regarding the Unionists taking control”
Until independence, the unionists are always in control of Scotland no matter who sits in Holyrood. Scotland’s social institutions (incl Gov depts) are run by a meritocratic elite that is mostly privileged, Anglophone, and unionist. This is what is known as a ‘Cultural Division of Labour’ in the ‘internal colonialism model’ (Hechter 1999). It is also a major contributory factor to prevailing inequalities and national underdevelopment, which parallels linguistic underdevelopment (Phillipson & Skutnabb Kangas).
Also see: Report looking at the social background of people that hold positions of power and influence in Scotland.
link to gov.uk
[Sorry – I mis-did the codes for italics.]
Andrew Davidson says:
7 April, 2021 at 9:35 am
I saw people posting those images on twitter and assumed it must be a mickey take. That’s real?
The SNP comms and advertising people must be stoned.
A little harsh, surely?
..
Yes, ‘admonished’; even ‘sacked’, maybe.
;D
“Tackling problems with the our legal system and governance in general isn’t something we can do first. I’m unclear what it is that you’re actual proposing or what timescale you think it will be achieved in?”
What I’m suggesting is we dispose of the Lord Advocate’s seat at the cabinet table and once again have a completely separate and politically independent judiciary.
That Skripal official story is the biggest pile of shite I have ever heard. If Salmond had said that was the Russians he’d be talking pish and he knows better. Nicola on the other hand would be pushing that garbage all day long.
So anyway thinking about that point above about getting 70% of MSPs with only 49% of the vote would still not be enough…
That supermajority thing was basically the last thing I was clinging to, to persuade myself that voting SNP1 made some sense.
I think I am back to tactical voting against the SNP on the constituency vote. It is what they bastarding deserve.
@Breeks
They (the SNP) are taking the piss out of people like you, and to be frank because you seem to think that voting New SNP is a good idea I don’t blame them.
This is the problem, these people are actually trolling you, laughing at you and taking the piss out you and your response is to think it’s some kind of unionist plot.
You don’t have any “spidey senses”, believe me. Wake up.
On a more light-hearted side note, does anyone know why the SNP chose to use television sets that were last seen in the late 70s?
It it to chime with the cold war ideology of total power, one
party states, supreme leaders, centralization and five year plans?
This is so utterly embarrassing that only a complete eejit could be inspired by this piece of propaganda.
Breeks
The only thing that sort of makes sense is the backdrop is the UK and the bright young thing with the long red hair is bold new future for Scotland – young, confident and free of Y-chromosomes.
All the Nicolas’ on TV go strongly against that though but then again maybe the video producers were having a laugh and the people at SNP HQ were too clueless or too busy to notice / realise. I suppose if you were hired by Nicola as future leadership material, 1984 is so far in the past that only old folks would know about it.
It seems strange putting this on TV – a political ad on Facebook perhaps but something on MSM that is likely seen by a lot of people seems a little suicidal.
Mac @4.24pm.
Mac.
Lets not forget Porton Down a stones throw from Salisbury, where the MoD has an ultra secret facility capable of manufacturing toxins among other things, what a coincidence.
link to en.wikipedia.org
gullaneno4 says: at 4:09 pm
“You do realise that is a double edged sword, it works both ways.”
No shit Sherlock! But seeing as Alba are stating SNP 1 Alba 2 you’d think a switched on Pro-Indy SNP rep would accept this and aknowledge the worth of that situation, rather than go full mental loco hostile against someone that is voting for their Party in the constituency and an alternative on the list to make better use of Pro-Indy votes.
Fuck me, I spent yesterday getting 6 new voters registered, and several more voting SNP with their first votes, and I am getting the blame from some SNP party hack if we don’t get Indy… 🙁
Sigh – wrong constituency.
I wish I could vote for Bonnie Prince Bob 1 and Alba 2.
How satisfying would that be?
John Martini says:
7 April, 2021 at 3:11 pm
Is Scotland real? I have been thinking about whether it is just a social and psychological construct.
The most popular academic to popularise this theory is of course Yuval Noah Harari, particularly in his book Sapiens (although i thoroughly recommend Homo Deus to give you a glimpse into the Sturgeonesque/1984 future that awaits you).
He’ll tell you it’s both social and psychological. He’ll also tell you that Scotland or any nation is just a myth, a fiction, a story we sapiens tell ourselves. Doing this gives humans the unprecedented ability to cooperate in large numbers.
We are then able to cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of other strangers – hence how we very quickly came to have dominion over the entire globe.
To give hime credit, nobody knows this more than Salmond. Even before he uttered a word yesterday he had us view arial shots of The Bruce on horseback – evoking feelings and heroic stories of old, his opening words centring on the Declaration of Arbroath. It’s great psychological manipulation and works to unite us as one. It’s actually something Sturgeon fails at miserably, as she continues to divide us through the continual introduction of one woke policy after another.
But as for our dear Scotland, it appears it doesn’t exist except in the mind of our collective imagination.
OK, it’s obvious you guys won’t be giving the SNP your vote. So SNP both votes from this household.
Dan.
It is not me you should be having a go at.
I am quite convinced that SNP 1 Alba 2 is the best way to go in most regions.
Trouble is so many Alba guys on here and other blogs seem to disagree with both me and Alex Salmond.
Christ the Lib/Dem leader Ed Davey, not Willie Rennie, he’s a minion manager, is now saying that Alex Salmond could become Putin’s man in Holyrood.
People in glasshouses like Davey shouldn’t be throwing stones, his party is tainted via Cyril Smith and David Steele, the former a known sex beast, the latter apparently knew and said nothing, why would anyone vote for Willie Rennie’s branch office in Scotland knowing that.
AKA-Kieran says: at 4:50 pm
“OK, it’s obvious you guys won’t be giving the SNP your vote. So SNP both votes from this household.”
Apart from that blanket statement being bullshit, that’s some shocking hateful misgendering of the ladies on this site from an SNP supporter.
Totally spooked out at the moment…
Was about to bite into a piece of toast when I discovered a Turin Shroud-like image of Nicola Sturgeon on the back.
Never been blessed with a vision before except for those regular kinda ones after a massive ingestion of drugs.
Is this a sign that I should consider Both Votes SNP?
Couldn’t understand at the time why Sturgeon made such a song and dance over the Salisbury poisoning story. Becoming clearer now…
That Polital broadcast reminded of the Hunger Games, all those TV’s projecting the image President Snow , the supreme commander. And by the way, we never used the word nan in my neck of the woods, it was always granny.
@ ROS
That’ll be the same LibDems that took big donations from the likes of Spire Healthcare to push the genderwoowoo.
What’s more of a risk to our children. The Russians or twats that want to give bairns puberty blockers or remove the healthy sex organs off of confused kids.
Hmm brings a tune to mind…
Sting – Russians
link to youtube.com
Wasn’t the formula for Novichok in the public domain since the 1990s? Is Porton Down so rubbish that they couldn’t make it? Given that Novichok was Russian would the Russians really be so stupid as to use it in England? The real Novichok is seriously lethal, so we’re told so how come the Skripals survived? Just a few questions.
Dan @5.06pm.
That’s right Dan the Times newspaper revealed that.
The Liberal Democrats have received £100,000 in donations from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a Swiss company that produces triptorelin, a puberty-blocking drug given to children.
Pretendy Scot Jo Swinson was the leader then I think.
How often has a PPB made you think “you know what – they have some good ideas and I’m definitely changing my mind and I am going to vote for them”
As someone has said repeatedly this is not aimed and thinking politically active people it is aimed at the under 30s. These people have been exposed to the SNP for most of their sentient lives (in the same way their parents and grandparents were sold the Labour party). So Westminster evil vote SNP with both your votes .
It enforces this message and if you don’t behave the evil woman will get you.
Peter Roberts , not to mention the policeman who was first on the scene , the ambulance crew and the doctors and nurses.
And never forget how ‘lethal’ it was for the panicked residents who were told to wash their clothes and wipe down their handbags with baby wipes and they’d be fine.
I suspect if the Russian Government wants rid of you it would succeed very quietly – much like ours in Westminster.
Where are the Skripals? what news of them?
I too am apprehensive of the SNP getting a majority either alone (with the help of the ALBA Party campaign for #SNP1) or in coalition with the Green Party. Before the launch of ALBA I had intended to spoil my 1st ballot and I must admit that despite Alex saying give the SNP the constituency vote I still feel reluctant to do so. It rankles massively to vote for John, the redactor, Swinney. Not only because of the inquiry stuff but HCB, GRA, womans rights, missing money, conspiracy against and constant smearing of Alex Salmond, NEC and list place fiascoes etc. I would like to see him, plus Robertson and Yousaf lose their seats. I wish there was an Independent candidate in Perth. Robertson might be easier to unseat after the way Joanna Cherry was treated, support for Bonny Prince Bob and Alison Johnstone standing for the Greens/splitting the vote! In Humza Yousafs seat there are 9 candidates to chose from….one being link to youtube.com this guy who I only heard about last night but wants to repeal the HCB amongst other things. Laurence Fox was speaking about him. If Nicola is to keep her seat, which she probably will (?) it would be poetic justice if her “right hand men” were taken out! I know Daisy and lots of others are thinking “hold your nose and vote SNP” but there is still a few weeks until a definite decision has to be made. Hopefully things will become clearer.
Someone pointed out that why are so many SNP candidates holding crowdfunders, is it because the party is skint, as we know it is.
Where is the positive campaigning? That is utter shite which looks like a YSI college project. Why did they not have the uber-woke Emma Roddick firing out ping pong balls at David ‘bad boy’ Clegg or Rhiannon Spear drowning kittens?
I have to congratulate you Stuart Campbell
You have performed a definite miracle you have managed to unite both the unionist parties and the SNP management into a get Campbell frothing at the mouth deranged force ,
you are a real threat to the glorious Union ,it’s now obvious that the SNP management have been rumbled big time we all know now they were never going to threaten to the balance between Westminster and Holyrood they were getting on just fine until ALBA and Wings over Scotland upset the bleedn apple cart .
The next few weeks might get messy but maybe most real Indy supporters now get it , this SNPs days are numbered Nicola thought she had the Independence movement in a political straight jacket oops it hasn’t worked Nicola or should we refer to you as the Temporary FM for now .
More questions, since Skripal had shot his load some time ago and posed no further threat to Russia why would the Russians bother to try and take them out since their living costs were being met by the UK? Are the Russians so crap at assassinations that they would have bungled a job like that? If Russia seriously wanted them dead does anybody seriously believe they would still be alive?
P.S Did anyone read the ordure in the Guardian about Mr Salmond being accused of spinning Russian propaganda – I was going to ignore it in utter disgust but I wanted to know who was doing the accusing as opposed to some scurrilous , smearing so called journalist.
And lo and behold the first accuser was none other than the lying Liberal himself – step up to the plate Mr Carmichael.
What a load of crap is being printed and said – I am more than angry.
Do the under 30s watch PPBs? Are they sharing this one?
@ ROS
Old tweet thread with some now deleted tweets that I am sure eluded to far higher numbers.
link to twitter.com
Why would you want to vote SNP?
They won’t push independence.
They push social policies which benefit less than 1% of the population and disadvantage the rest.
Their leadership hide the truth about themselves.
They treat SNP funds as a personal piggy bank.
They think that the electorate will always vote for them no matter what
That Big Sister broadcast is risible.Whats with the banks of 1970s TV’s? Surely they could afford flatscreens at least? Looks like a job a couple of coked-up PR wideboys came up with on the back of fag packet.Still,at least we now know where the £600,000 didn’t go.
Someone signed off on this knowing that it looked totally dystopian – that was actually the vibe they were going for.
What do you have to do to get sacked from a job, or taken off a project at the SNP?
“But it’s not our dystopia, it’s Westminster’s”.
They’re just so out of touch.
@Stephen
What you say is spot on but the rabid cultists will still vote for them.
Come on folks, if the polls are correct then no matter your misgivings about voting SNP, they are in, end of. So, at least get something out of it. SNP 1 Alba 2. Alex knows what he is doing. So trust him.
FibDems treat the electorate as collateral damage to gain seats @Dan says at 5:06 pm
Highland NHS is a case in point.
1. FibDem Councillor won’t work with SNP so resigns
2. Self same FibDem ex-councillor gets job as NHS Highland Chair
3. Reduces services (Caithness Midwives unit etc.) and presides over culture of bullying
4. FibDems and compliant BritNat press use NHS failings to push FibDem vote by blaming Scottish Government
ALBA gives us the chance to decimate these fuckers!
For those “posters” going on about the Skripals/etc – its been done and dusted years ago on Craig Murray’s site.
If you want to argue specifics/speculation then go read there first otherwise you will look like what you are – trolling fucktards. At least do the basics eh?
I notice the BBC report on the interview with Mr Salmond repeats the Russian questions but noticeable fails to mention the connections between Mr Cameron and Mr Putin and Mr Cameron pleas to President Putin to support him against Scottish independence.
Funny the BBC do not report that wee point in the interview
Funny that, aye funny that!!
Hello BBC we see you
@Wee willie
The rabid cultists will still vote SNP
/
But what about the more intelligent such as the participants of this blog?
The SNP will not support independence or ally themselves with Alba.
The Greens will not support independence nor save the rainforest for that matter. They are more interested in looking after the lesser spotted transvestite.
True story, re the Skipals.. colleague at work, can’t stand politics, likes birds, football, beer and motorbikes (not necessarily in that order).
In spite of what this might sound like, he’s highly intelligent and very able.
Voted Yes during Indyref1, because of the scene in Braveheart when King Edward sent in the Welsh to get slaughtered. For him, that summed up English rule in a sentence. Not wrong either.
So, The Skipals – at its height, there was me, reading Criag Murray, etc. There was him, took one look and said, ‘The Russions! F-c- off, what a load of bollocks, this shit is just a distraction cause PM May is shite.’
So there you have it. The non political Scottish person’s analysis.
Not often I help the Britnats out, but just this once. All this crap about Russia/ the Skipals/ RT and Salmond a Russian plant – your wasting your time.
It’s got the Scottish – ‘What a load of Bollocks’ radar going big time. Keep pushing it, and they won’t believe any of your AS smears.
Your welcome.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
7 April, 2021 at 4:08 pm
““An actual supermajority of indy msps call a snap plebiscite election.”
That would require the cooperation of the SNP.”
Its better than the existing option which is 5 more years of groundhog day.
It also discourages people saying “fuck it” and disconnecting from indy politics.
“Where else are you gonna go?”
That was SLABs mantra and they died in a fire over a period not much longer than one Holyrood term. Ground roots gone.
The SNP are close to that now.
Alba is an outlet for many who really feel the SNP is beyond redemption now – inside the next 10 years anyway – because the entire “leadership” caste inside the SNP would need to go.
tl;dr even unlikely options are better than none.
@ Vestas
Your level of delusion knows no bounds. Craig Murray is not infallible. He as a rather second rate diplomat who appears to accuse the Israelis for the Salisbury incident. I must say that reading some of the contributions on here proves that massive delusion and paranoia seems to have taken off big time.
Russian connections?
Everyone knows it is the Tories who are up to their necks in oligarch cash for favours.
Boris gets free holidays from a Russian-born media mogul, the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch and former KGB agent who has a close relationship with President Putin and the Kremlin.
Perhaps Boris is a Russian sleeper agent. Is his first name a clue?
Phil M @ 4.58
I am an expert in Toastology and from your description I have no hesitation in confirming that you have indeed received a premonition.
My years of training tell me that the clear message you have received is that: –
‘Nicola Sturgeon is toast!’
The Russians don’t seem to be capable of making a deadly nerve agent.
Their secret service agents cannot avoid basic surveillance.
Given that you would have thought a hit and run / paying a hit man / paying a biker gang / paying a few junkies to knife him/ or any of another hundred low risk, low cost options would have been easier. Anyone who buys the Russian theory is nuts or watched too many James Bond movies from the sixties.
Wee Willie @6.23pm.
How’s the weather down at Denison barracks, is Daniel Reeve still your boss?
Dan @5.30pm.
Thanks Dan for the link, yeah, you’re correct it was a heck of a lot more cash from the puberty blocking company.
@ “Wee Willie” :
You need retraining son. You’re busted 🙂
@ ROS
There’s more here including the Ferring funding you mentioned.
link to twitter.com
Inspired as I was by the Eat, Sleep, put 2 fingers down your throat, Nicla TShirts, I paid a wee visit to the SNP Store.
They will HATE me for saying this, but if you have a wee look at their Badges section, they have some very good SOLTIRE Flag type badges, with YES on it. Very reasonably priced.
Kind of sends a message. Almost like a logo… I did think of buying one, but I don’t want them inundating me with adverts and begging letters.
Will donate to Alba again instead.
Re Both votes Yes.
At the moment (and polling nearer the time, might change this) but at the moment, if I vote SNP on the Constituency vote, and Swinney gets elected – it suppresses the SNP vote on the list, and a lesser amount of SNP candidates get in to join him on the list.
Alba vote for the list, with a chance of 4 getting elected. 1 SNP on the Constituency and 4 on Alba list.
That’s a better ratio, than 1 SNP and no-one in Holyrood standing up for Indy. And its pretty much the only reason I can contemplate holding my nose and voting for him.
If the SNP LIST vote collapses entirely nearer polling day, going entirely to Alba – there is a chance, just a chance that tactical voting to get rid of Nicla, Swinney, Humza and Robertson might be do-able on the Constituency vote.
But lets be a wee bit sensible. The Britnats might not be able to joey all the seats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they can fix one or 2. What would be the betting that Sarwar gets in, and so does Robertson. Bye bye Nicla. New blood, Labour revival, fresh broom n all that.
If Nicla, Robertson, Humza and Swinney all go – the odius Alyn Smith will become leader. Sadly there are no shortages of Plans B, C or D for the Britnats.
@ Dan says:
7 April, 2021 at 6:40 pm
@ ROS
There’s more here including the Ferring funding you mentioned.
link to twitter.com
So, from that link, that’s about £340,000 in donations to a party, for a drug that causes lifelong health issues to teenagers.
For a private health care company, what an absolute ‘loss leader’ that is. A life time of medication to sell.
I’d be very surprised if there isn’t a significant amount of unofficial spending going on behind the scenes with our politicians. Holiday homes abroad perchance, very easy to conceal.
Makes you long for the good old days when there were simpler issues, like the Thalidamide Scandal – caused by shortcuts and fuck ups. At least they were not deliberately trying to maim. Wicked, wicked, times we live in.
Dan @6.40pm.
Thanks again Dan, it makes you wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to vote for the Lib/Dems, a party that pushes f&cking up children’s minds and bodies for donations.
I read that there are some who are uncomfortable with ‘SNP 1 / Alba 2’, in case that gives the SNP a majority, without needing support from any other party.
I would suggest that there are 4 constituency seats where it could be more productive to suggest ‘not SNP 1 / Alba 2’. Taking my info from,
link to en.wikipedia.org
I’d suggest that these constituencies are,
Glasgow Southside, Glasgow region (Nicola Sturgeon)
Edinburgh Central, Lothian region (where Angus Dempsie is standing)
Dunfermline, Mid Scotland and Fife (what Shirley-Anne Somerville has been involved in over the past 3-4 years does not merit her re-election)
Perthshire North, Mid Scotland and Fife (John Swinney)
If those four weren’t elected, things could become “interesting”…
If Sturgeon AND Robertson go there will be no incentive for senior SNP members to stay silent and the story will start to come out.
Swinney is a non-entity who will fall with his Mistress/Master.
We can’t have Robertson. Its totally unacceptable. Under ANY circumstances. Ever. I’d rather vote for Thatcher – much as I hated her she wasn’t a cunt. A witch maybe but not a cunt.
I’ve attended many meetings in my life. The most bizarre have been with the Scottish Government.
The first meeting was in August 2016 and it was two senior civil-servants. I was there to tell them that the school they had just built was failing; it was sinking into the mud.
All they had to do was take my information and give it to the construction company and ask them to respond. That’s what any other Government would have done.
Don’t try and answer it yourself. Give it to an expert; a consultant and ask them to balance my information with that of the construction company and give a judgement.
Instead, they said to me: ‘We’ve checked this school and we’re happy it’s OK’. In saying that, they accepted liability for the school in much the same way as was done at Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital. A problem which should have remained the construction company’s, suddenly and needlessly becomes the Scottish Government’s problem.
They were undoubtedly a pair of arrogant arseholes.
The second meeting was in May 2018 with another pair of senior civil servants. This time I was saying that: ‘This school is failing; you’d better fix it before it’s too late’.
This time they weren’t arrogant, but they were afraid. The meeting lasted for three hours and it conclued by them saying that they understood the problem and would take it up with the City Council and get it resolved. Both have done nothing. When you Email them, back comes a message saying: ‘busy on Covid duties’.
What surprises me most about this episode is how utterly spineless the unions have been. There I am doing their job for them and even they don’t respond.
Last night I ended-up sending the details to the Secretary of State for Scotland and asking for his assistance to achieve a resolution.
Think about this…..we have a Parliament full of MSP’s. What are they doing? Does anyone know? Are we ready for independence when the quality of government is so dire that they all hide from you?
OT
How does the prat in the hat get on STV but Alex/Alba don’t?
Alba still on 3%?
It’s a bit strange that slobber gob (Gove) and himself are in this together, so much for his socialist credentials.
Have have the Tories dumped Dross?
Babe Ruth is fronting their broadcast just now.
Ah DRoss has a secondary role.
Hi Daisy Walker.
The SNP losing a constituency seat does not guarantee them a list seat.
They lost a constituency in NE Scotland in 2016 but didn’t get a list seat.
I have to say that broadcast is truly awful but deliberately made so. It appears to have been purposely portrayed to deliver a sensation of coldness, despair, darkness and loneliness. It does put you right off, actually. I think this ain’t no accident. The only thing missing to complete the surreal, dystopian picture they attempt to convey is a live chicken in an undersized bird cage dangling from the ceiling like the one in the film “chainsaw massacre” to put people completely off.
Did Sturgeon’s SNP paid for this video or were they paid to put their name to this crap?
Are those pulling the strings behind Sturgeon and Murrell deliberately alienating voters with this horrible broadcast? Is this the British state’s plan B to stop the supermajority?
@ BDtt
Aye. Also in the 2016 election in the Lothian Region, SNP only won 6 out of 9 constituency seats and still didn’t get a list seat.
We now see Sturgeon’s ugly fizzog everywhere we look. It’s got to the point where ah cannae even bring mysel’ tae turn oan the telly for fear o’ havin’ tae see her again or listen tae her dalek-like voice – exterminate, exterminate!
Don’t forget if you can spare some cash:
link to crowdfunder.co.uk
Who directed this shite? Emma Roddick and the woke brigade?
Those stills suggest a combination of Win’s “You’ve Got The Power” and the folk rolling rocks uphill in the McEwans lager advert.
The SNP has been destroyed. It is as though a parasite has taken over.
It is no longer about independence.
The SNP is now fixated upon people who are confused as to their sexual orientation.
How did things come to this pass?
Has it got something to do with the Dear Leader?
@ ROS
Yet more… There’s a post by OldCrone on this page which links to ElectoralCommision funding page. £1.5 million to LibDems.
link to mumsnet.com
Clutching at straws for anti-SNP material now, ironically. You’re better than this.
@Fred
He is right. Humans can be improved.
If only there was a safe and easy way to prevent her from getting into the parliament.
Ipsos-Mori telephone survey is the FIFTH poll in a row to show a pro-independence majority
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 52% (-)
No 48% (-)
Of course another way of looking at it is that if Ipsos-Mori’s methodology is right, Yes never actually lost the lead in the first place.
Scottish Parliament constituency voting intentions:
SNP 53% (+1)
Conservatives 20% (-3)
Labour 18% (+3)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1)
Greens 2% (-1)
Scottish Parliament regional list voting intentions:
SNP 38% (-9)
Conservatives 21% (-1)
Labour 18% (+4)
Greens 12% (+4)
Liberal Democrats 6% (-)
Alba 3% (+3)
A question – what have Labour and the Greens done recently to boost their support by 40% and 50% respectively… and what have the SNP done to have their support drop by 9% in the same period… on the List ONLY, in the same period when Alba came into existence?
@ Brian Doonthetoon says:
7 April, 2021 at 6:59 pm
Hi Daisy Walker.
The SNP losing a constituency seat does not guarantee them a list seat.
They lost a constituency in NE Scotland in 2016 but didn’t get a list seat.
Reply. Thanks Brian, I get what your saying. If they lose their List votes en mass to Alba… now that would guarantee them losing on the list seats – wouldn’t it.
And if that was what was looking like happening (nearer polling day) then the option of tactically voting on the FPTP Constituency vote (for certain chosen seats) might, be do-able.
At the moment its not, because its too far away, and Alba have a lot to do to secure the list Yes vote.
One thing though, if that’s how the ground starts to move, then then the good SNP guys and gals currently keeping their heads down and hoping to get elected without saying a bad word about St Nicla – are going to have to develop a policy of some clear blue water between her and her policies and their overwhelming support for Scottish Indy. Or they too will not get elected – Nicla is already seeing to that.
Both votes Yes – ONLY works while the SNP are solid on taking nearly all the Constituency votes.
If Alba secures the full Yes List vote – and get all 32 of their members elected – its not enough for a majority.
We need to know which Constituency seats are marginal for SNP, and would be vulnerable to Unionist tactical voting.
And then we need to know which List seat areas – would also be susceptible to unionist tactical voting?
For example Perthsire North – John Swinney got in on the Constituency vote – but its a strong tory area. He will be bricking it I suspect.
Mid Scotland is the List area – roughly speaking – in 2016, SNP took 120,000, Tories 73,000, Labour 51,000, Lib Dems 20,000 greens 17,500.
But no-one likes to vote tactically on the list – people vote emotionally, the Constituency vote is their Number 1 vote, the list vote is their back up plan, their chance to give the little local guy a step on the ladder. So, it’s a really difficult sell for the Britnats to 1/ask and 2 get them to understand and deliver.
Anyway 5 elections in, and the electorate are beginning to work out how to get what they want, in spite of Dehont.
Captain Yossarian @ 2.22 (Is there another way)
Shocked @ 2.25 ( Getting the hands of the tiller)
I too want the whole corrupt pack of cards to come tumbling down as soon as possible. But I want more, much more.
I am consumed by the need to know all the facts, so far withheld, relating to the Salmond case. I want to know who exactly did what and when to cause an innocent man to be persecuted, causing such shame to the reputation of Scotland, and at such cost to the public purse.
Only then can people see for themselves and judge those involved as to their suitability to hold public office.
This material was not allowed to be considered in the criminal trial, and has not been made available to the public in the two subsequent inquiries.
Whatever happens in the election, the result will not lead to the publication of this essential material, unless the parliament obtains the total privilege needed to allow someone to stand up and tell us, which probably means asking turkeys voting for Christmas to get it.
I believe there is just a glimmer of hope in the court action being brought by Alex Salmond. I know the Capt. has had enough of lawyers and courts, but bear with me.
Whilst I don’t yet know the nature of the proceedings to be brought, I am comforted by the fact that it is the Court of Session which will hear the case. This court will not be prevented from seeing all the material denied to us, and will not be as quick to ban publication if it is considered necessary in the public interest.
I believe Mr. Salmond will not be looking just for financial recompense, in fact I think that would be secondary to him establishing that the claims he has made are true and thereby achieving total vindication of his position. I don’t think he will rest until no stone is left unturned in his pursuit of justice, and in this I fully support him.
I know that mention has been made of any proceedings being settled. That is a possibility. But it would be on terms, and in that respect Mr. Salmond would be in the best position to state what they must be. I have no doubt that it would have to contain a full acknowledgement of the wrongs done to him and by whom.
If he can achieve this disclosure of information, which is so obviously necessary in the public interest, it would go a long way in helping to prise certain hands off the tiller of government if they were still there, and thus bring this sorry chapter of Scottish history to an end.
Scottish law is noted for having a way of putting things right where they have gone wrong. If ever there was such a case, it is this one. The truth must, and will, come out.
@kcor
Maybe she will pass over to the next world. She is about due to ascend to heaven.
I understand how unpalatable it is to vote for these shower of shits on the constituency but really the more seats they win the stronger Alba become. Alec has them cornered on all sides and there is no escape now, it’s damage limitation for them. Can you imagine how incompetent he will make them look on FMQ’s?
Their only possible chance of escape now is to damage the SNP vote to stop Alba gaining seats or rigging the postal votes. Sturgeon will burnt thew house down before moving on Independence. The Union is in her DNA.
Ruth Davidson in the Tory PPB:
‘The Party vote [i.e. the list vote] is the one that matters.’
Who is gaming the system now? Their strategy isn’t to prevent an SNP majority – it’s just to get the likes of Murdo & Annie back into Holyrood. The Tories’ real, fool-proof method of preventing Indyref2 is for Boris Johnson to continue to refuse permission. After all, what are we going to do? Riot? Civil disobedience?
Lol. Looks like one of Emma Roddick’s self harming nightmares!
Rev. Stuart Campbell says,
“We’re all cheered up by the arrival of Alba, but make no mistake – we’re in a bad situation, and if (1) doesn’t happen I think we’re absolutely definitely boned for at least five years.”
How about ALBA fighting the next Westminster election on a plebiscite manifesto?
You have already drafted the perfect manifesto for the purpose.
Also how about a grassroots campaign for a tactical vote against the most obnoxious SNP candidates?
Especially those who are not on the list and cannot “game the system” to get back in?
I know of one especially obnoxious SNP candidate who can be defeated in this way.
But I won’t name her because the vast majority of posters here are dead against the idea.
The Tories seem to have run up the White Fleg.
Only interested in the second vote.
I got their election leaflet today.
Jeez what a mess, no policy at all except no to Independence
Denison Barracks. My word. The command of Wikipedia interrogation shown by commenters on this site is astounding.
Anyway. I digress. Does anyone read the Spectator online? ‘Steerpike’ has quite an amusing piece on the SNP. Helps if you’ve seen the film ‘1984’ made in er, 1984. The one with John Hurt. Wee Nicola as Big Brother.
You get the gist.
The stupidity of that SNP ppb everything they that the whine about London doing to us could have been stopped by the Scottish Gov. They did sweet FA and we are where we are because of their utter failure to protect us.
All hail our supreme leader!
Queen Nic up there on her mantle will love seeing herself as some idolised hero of the people.
This was a disturbing broadcast similar to what you would expect from places like North Korea. The Teflon queens sycophants will love it though as they bow down like wee Santa’s helpers.
After seeing that I can’t bring myself to vote SNP 1. It’s Alba only for me.
Derek at 7:13 pm said: “Those stills suggest a combination of Win’s “You’ve Got The Power” and the folk rolling rocks uphill in the McEwans lager advert.”
Agreed, and I’m glad someone else sees the resemblance!
Whoever came up with that SNP party political broadcast is either a Rikki Fulton fan, or an 80’s McEwans Lager ad fan.
link to youtube.com
(90 second video, with the lager ad, followed by Rikki’s spoof of it.)
Daisy Walker says,
“If I elect an SNP Constituent – by doing so I prevent (or vastly reduce the chances of) any more SNP getting a seat on the list.”
Doesn’t the same apply if you (tactically) vote for a unionist in the constituency?
ALBA then competes with the SNP instead of the unionist party that won the constituency, whose chances of getting a list seat are then vastly reduced.
ALBA’s chances would remain the same.
I would apply this logic against the most obnoxious SNP candidates.
Prevent an SNP majority AND get rid of some corrupt lying SNP criminals at the same time.
A WIN WIN situation.
Whoever came up with that idea has seriously screwed up.
When I first saw it on Twitter last night, I thought it was a spoof video.
It’s got attention alright; for all the wrong reasons.
@merganser – I had trust in Scottish law when this process was started 7-years ago. But, the politicisation of the law has made it a waste of everyone’s money.
The spectacle of James Wolffe and Nicola Surgeon at the Fabiani Inquiry smiling at everyone because they knew they held all the aces and couldn’t be touched confirmed that to me.
‘We are the government’ and the law exists to keep troublesome folk under some control.
Roddy Dunlop comes out of this looking pretty good still and I believe that one or two of them still have a good ethic about them.
Regarding Salmond, I think it is a nap that he will settle this out of court. I cannot see any possibility of these unredacted documents being handed-over because it would mean the end of Holyrood.
If there is one profession that has suffered a precipitous fall in respect in the past year it is our legal profession. They simply do not work in the public interest any longer and I would personally be happy to see them taken under Special Measures, the service is so dishonest nowadays.
I’ve a great plot for the next broadcast.
Picture her on the runway, arriving on a plane from London, clutching a bit of paper. Declaring to the waiting media; “Independence In Our Time…”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says,
“I absolutely see the logic of Alba advocating SNP1, but even with logic as my main driving force I don’t think I could bring myself to do it if I had a vote, because the danger if the SNP get a majority by themselves is just too enormous.”
The Super majority we need for independence has to include lots of ALBA MSPs but the SNP short of a majority.
Alex Salmond is obviously not going to single out any SNP candidates not to vote for.
That is where we, the people, need to use our own initiative.
The most obnoxious of the SNP candidates have to be actively voted out, not by abstaining or spoiling the ballot but by voting tactically for the candidate most likely to unseat them.
I am sure we will get some very good calculations by the Rev. Stuart Campbell nearer the election to help us make up our minds.
O/T I guess but did anyone see Imran Khan’s comments about rapey men, essentially its the womans fault because of how they dress. I kid you not.
I wonder whether Queen Nicola, RCS and the much revered Justice Minister will be out and about on Social Media and the MSM condemning for me as a bloke (a real one) this outrageous slur on actual real victims?
Imagine if AS had said this or indeed Trump (am in no way associating the two, merely pointing out the rank hypocrisy)
Mind you with the new Hate Crime Law, they’d have to prosecute themselves!!
Similarly down here (Engerland) a teacher needs protection from followers of a 7th century cult, about a mythical figure around a cartoon about said mythical character!!! And yet nary a peep from the two main parties, the police, the Unions.
You really couldn’t make it up especially if you are in any way sensible or honest.
Sorry for the intrusion just makes by piss boil!!
The minute I saw the stills the first thing that came to mind was a badly made version of “1984”. And that was before I reached the end of the article and saw your comment Stuart!
In the SNP version, Big Brother is self-identifying as Big Sister!
Kcor says:
7 April, 2021 at 8:11 pm
Daisy Walker says,
“If I elect an SNP Constituent – by doing so I prevent (or vastly reduce the chances of) any more SNP getting a seat on the list.”
Doesn’t the same apply if you (tactically) vote for a unionist in the constituency?
ALBA then competes with the SNP instead of the unionist party that won the constituency, whose chances of getting a list seat are then vastly reduced.
ALBA’s chances would remain the same.’
No they would not – it would split the yes vote. Alba’s plan does the opposite. People have a chance now of electing the same amount of SNP candidates, and, at no loss to the SNP, electing Alba on the list.
If – for those like myself – having to contemplate holding my nose and voting for Swinney, if I don’t do that, but instead vote for a Unionist, and they get elected, and also that is a well supported plan by others also, then the list SNP vote will rally – to the detriment of Alba, and with fewer Constituency seats won, the SNP vote will have a lower division number on the list, thereby increasing their chances of getting one of their Woke careerists in on the list.
Sorry its not easy to explain, and I’m no expert, but that is as I understand it.
George Orwell never got a Nobel Prize for Lit and now we know why. I am looking at the above in disbelief. It is Orwellian.
@ Captain Yossarian
You have a deeper and more recent knowledge of the legal process than I do, so I very much respect your view. I tried not to over-egg the pudding by saying it was a glimmer of hope, but while it exists I have to hope that that it may deliver what I am looking for. I can’t think of any other way. It would be unbearable to think that so many people have been deceived, and the cause of independence so badly damaged by such a terrible cover up.
@Kcor 8.25 pm
I think you’re right. It probably isn’t enough just to hope against hope that the outcome opponents of the current SNP want to see just happens without some tactical voting. We can’t afford an SNP or SNP/Green majority in power. I understand and sympathise with folk that couldn’t bring themselves to vote tactically fora yoon: I certainly couldn’t vote for a Tory, but then again I can’t bring myself to vote for Angus Robertson either.
Targeting individual SNP constituency MSPs is entirely legitimate in my view. I’d rather risk a few more yoons getting in if it meant ridding ourselves of some of the Sturgeonista Loyal.
We all know that handing the SNP a majority means no progress on indy for the next five years, unless “ordinary members” rise up and eject Sturgeon and her cabal (don’t hold your collective breath!) or enough SNP MSPs and MPs defect when they realise it is safe to do so. I’m not sure I want to trust that enough of them have the balls for that!
Daisy Walker says,
“No they would not – it would split the yes vote.”
“I’m no expert, but that is as I understand it.”
You didn’t read / understand what I wrote.
je suis l’etat et l’etat c’est moi.
Captain Yossarian
Expect to get a letter back saying the role of the Scottish Govt is to provide, ideas, policies and funding…
It’s the Scottish Govt version of: “Sorry, I’m washing my hair tonight” or: “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”.
But, well done for trying.
Daisy and co @ 8.39
Is it not the case that ALBA stands the best chance of getting list seats in Constituencies that have returned an SNP representative – and that is expected to be a high tally- therefore it raises the chances for ALBA on those regional lists.
If the SNP is not expected to win the Constituency vote, then they would most likely be the second highest vote and should therefore benefit from the first seat on the the list allocation, but thereafter it would possibly even out.
Andy Ellis says.
“I think you’re right. It probably isn’t enough just to hope against hope that the outcome opponents of the current SNP want to see just happens without some tactical voting. We can’t afford an SNP or SNP/Green majority in power.”
We can only get the desired outcome by having very good knowledge of the situation in each constituency / region.
I am eagerly waiting for a detailed analysis of this by the Rev. Stuart Campbell, which will help posters here make the right decision.
SNP 1 / ALBA 2 mantra applied universally could, as the Rev. Stuart Campbell himself fears, lead to an SNP majority.
As I posted yesterday, the SNP, along with the unionists, will jeer at ALBA in such a situation.
ALBA 2 is fine in every region – I don’t even care what happens to the SNP in the south.
But SNP 1 cannot and must not be applied universally.
Labour 1 / ALBA 2 is the ideal policy in the Glasgow Southside constituency, but absolute morons here are attacking Andy and myself for advocating it.
A neighbour has just received a letter from the SNP, asking for a donation for independence and the election.
Captain Yossarian
National Services Central Legal Office Anderson House,
Breadalbane St, Edinburgh
The lawyers for the Scottish NHS etc. There’s a Freedom of Information request for someone:
How much public funding does this nest of vipers swallow up, that could be spent on health care?
Throughout the campaigns the Tory tactic was to constantly broadcast the “no new referendum” message stressing that this was an important major difference between the Tory and any other candidates firmly imprinting this in the electorate’s minds. In contrast the SNP campaign lacked inspiration was poorly directed and failed to get the voters out. Information is power and the laid back approach of Peter Murrell, the SNP strategist allowed the Tory Party to outwit him. He failed the Party. Had Murrell been the Chief strategist of any political party other than the SNP he would have been given his marching orders. Incredulously he was given a huge pay rise and a pat on the back.
link to caltonjock.com
SNP Crime Crime Crime Cri Cri Cri Crime Crime Crime
And so i face the SNP wall, turn my back against it all…
Niklair must have been watching 1984 for that PPB, and thought ooh! a great idea. Big Sister is watching over you!
@Kcor 9.04pm
I can’t stand Sarwar but I’d hold my nose and vote for him to get rid of Govan’s Eva Peron.
@merganser – The Engineering Council tell all its members: ‘It’s your duty to be a whistleblower; you will be protected ethically and legally, if you are in the UK’.
Try doing that in Scotland and our Holyrood parliamentarians will hang you from a tree.
I was a whistle-blower 7-years ago and I have hardly worked since. I was correct and if they had listened to me they would have saved themselves literally millions of pounds.
I had to have independent engineering checks carried-out in the US and they confirmed what I had warned them about several years before was absolutely correct….every detail of it.
Due to the intervention of the Sectretary of State for Scotland, independent engineering checks were carried out by an Edinburgh specialist consultant 2-weeks ago. We therefore know if the building is safe or unsafe. I suspect it is unsafe.
The Directors of two of Glasgow’s foremost law firms don’t know what a whistle-blower is and don’t know what a ‘protected disclosure is’. Do you believe that?
I presume both have been got-at by James Wolffe and John Swinney. They may, of course, be another more benign explanation that has thus far escaped me.
It leaves the teaching unions who have known all about this for 2-years but have elected to do nothing. Can you explain that?
I have done everything by the book as far as the Engineering Council are concerned. It is up to the government to deal with it maturely and our government, somehow, cannot do that.
My MSP is the premier league MSP from Dumbarton and she cannot do anything either.
Like the Shirley McKee case of 2000, it will be the combined pressure of politicians, unions, media and the teachers and parents at the school who will push this along finally.
The moral of this story is do not be tempted to be a whistle-blower in Scotland or you will be killed. We are governed by vainglorious idiots.
Andy Ellis says,
“I understand and sympathise with folk that couldn’t bring themselves to vote tactically fora yoon: I certainly couldn’t vote for a Tory, but then again I can’t bring myself to vote for Angus Robertson either.”
Those sort of situations are where we need very good knowledge to make the best decisions.
The situation in Glasgow Southside is already absolutely clear and it is unbelievable that absolute morons who read Wings Over Scotland everyday still cannot get it into their thick heads:
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Scheming on a mirage),
“It’s much the same as the Glasgow Southside situation. You’re not choosing between Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon – Sarwar is top of the Labour list so he’s getting in no matter what happens. What you’re effectively doing with your constituency vote in Glasgow Southside is choosing between two SNP MSPs – Sturgeon or Roza Salih. If you’d prefer Salih, vote Sarwar on the constituency paper.)”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Rallying to the banner),
“If you believe Sturgeon is a block on independence it’s a very rational position.”
@ Meg merrilees at 9.02
The number of votes the SNP get in a constituency they don’t win is irrelevant.
First Past the Post is winner-takes-all, and if you don’t win, it matters not a jot whether you are second or seventh. Your constituency performance (as in vote share) is not what determines whether you win any list seats.
ALBA aren’t standing in “constituencies that…return…an SNP representative”.
They are standing in regions that contain 8, 9 or 10 constituencies. It is the total number of these constituencies that a party wins, not their cumulative constituency votes, or ranking if they don’t win, that determines the divisor for the allocation of list seats.
ALBA stands the “best chance of getting list seats” in regions where the SNP win all or almost all of the constituencies within those regions.
But ALBA’s chances also depend on how the non-ALBA votes are split between all other parties, because every party’s vote share affects its own chances of a seat.
Rep. of Scotland and others – Alex’s defintion of a supermajority is somewhere in the region of 72 seats upwards.
WM say a suprmajority is when a party polls two thirds of the available votes i.e. Holyrood has 129 seats so WM think a supermaj would be 86 seats. This is what Alex says we cannot allow them to dictate.
If ALBA polls around 6% of the vote it should win 8 seats so keep recruiting friends and family. Media will not be willing to oblige very much.
Captain Yossarian
The Scottish colony of the UK state does not hang whistlebowers, they try to discredit them or get them done on a trumped up charge of contempt of court, so no jury is involved.
Even if they get found not guilty, it fair puts the frighteners on them and everybody else.
This a better PPB
link to facebook.com
@Meg Merrilees 9.26 pm
Holyrood’s own standing orders define a supermajority as two thirds. (Chapter 11.11.4)
link to parliament.scot
To call new elections we’ll need 2/3. I see the moral argument about a big majority that is less than 2/3 but I fear it won’t do us much good. Only 2/3 gets us new plebiscitary elections: for those we DON’T need 2/3, just a majority as long as it includes >50% of the vote.
Crazycat – thankyou.
You explain it MUCH better than me.
I was actually trying to say what you have written but my regions and constituencies were muddled.
e.g.
ALBA stands the “best chance of getting list seats” in regions where the SNP win all or almost all of the constituencies within those regions.
especially if the SNP supporters follow the SNP I and 2 votes then they lessen their own chance of a list seat.
If many of them can be convinced to vote SNP 1 ALBA 2 then that would bring more chance for ALBA and the supermajority
Absolutely shit PPB and I would sack the ejit responsible for producing it. Looks like they were set up.
To “The Southside pluggers”
Sarwar is a Unionist. He is against independence. He doesn’t think Alex should be in Holyrood. So fuck voting for that.
Southside pluggers should be advocating spoil if they want her majority reduced and sent a message. Let her squirm on the day against Sarwar- it’s not our fight. Our fight is getting Alba list seats not plugging yoons or Sturgeon lot, let them slug it.
Spoil in Southside!
She’ll be toast soon after anyhow.
@Colin Alexander – They haven’t made a very good job of discrediting me then. I have the opinions of over 40No world-wide experts which discredits them. In fact, it humiliates them.
No Colin, it’s not as subtle as that. The Scottish Government just refuse to communicate. The teaching unions refuse to communicate too. It’s that easy. In Scotland, our government and unions just sit on their hands.
I am not being beaten by brains or guile, I have been beaten thus far by malfeasance.
As I said, I have done everything by the book and the best advice I received was from a London based whistle-blowing charity and the chap there has never seen anything like this in his life.
It has been checked by an excellent team of specialist engineers and the results are known. Can they be redacted or hidden?….no, they can’t. That sir is a major problem for Mr Swinney and Mr Wolffe.
We should know the answer very soon. I cannot see them being able to conceal this until after the election, can you?
It reminds me very much of the Alex Salmond case when he said that: ‘those responsible for this haven’t been sacked or demoted…’ Remember? That’s the same in this case. In fact, several have been promoted.
So, as you can imagine, it is a veritable house of cards. If one goes, half a dozen others will also have to go too.
Scottish living in Ireland.
As I see it, if with Green and Alba winning lots of list seats there is a supermajority then it will be there for the duration of the Parliament.
Therefore it might be helpful if now and again the odd conciliatory bone is thrown into the fire, we’re all well meaning cunts after all.
Any Indyref is going to need the energy of the woke to win.
AYRSHIRE ROB says,
“To “The Southside pluggers”
Sarwar is a Unionist. He is against independence.”
An absolute moron has turned up already.
For your information, the Rev. Stuart Campbell is NOT a “Southside plugger” by anyone’s definition:
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Scheming on a mirage),
“It’s much the same as the Glasgow Southside situation. You’re not choosing between Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon – Sarwar is top of the Labour list so he’s getting in no matter what happens. What you’re effectively doing with your constituency vote in Glasgow Southside is choosing between two SNP MSPs – Sturgeon or Roza Salih. If you’d prefer Salih, vote Sarwar on the constituency paper.)”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Rallying to the banner),
“If you believe Sturgeon is a block on independence it’s a very rational position.”
Are you that thick, ROB from AYRSHIRE?
Kudos to the ‘creative ‘ who came up with ^. An easy pitch to win the job.
Pandering to the narcissist was business genius.
And funny, in a scary sort of way.
I don’t really believe in telling people how to vote and the truth is I really don’t care what the hell any of you do, except that I hope everybody votes Alba with the second votes.
I can see the appeal of voting for Sarwar and humiliating Sturgeon, though. She’s definitely worth it.
When the Rev goes quiet like this, I like to think he’s working on some new article that will blow the SNP leadership’s socks off.
Can you imagine how much they must worry about what’s coming?
Kcor,the Southside plugger
Do you want to marry Stuart Campbell or what? Stu gave an opinion, you just take it to the extreme plugging Sarwar it’s fucking monotonous. Think for yourself man ffs.
Sarwar is a yoon Sturgeon is well ,feck knows on that matter.
It’s not your fight .Alba on the list is the priority. The constituency will sort itself out.
You’re a yoon , yet mammy wis a yoon and your granny tae. Same as Sarwar.
O/T: I am a bit concerned/annoyed about Mr Salmond’s decision to go it alone with Alba rather than come under AFI’s umbrella.
AFI was a brilliant innovation in our political scene that enhanced the range of views represented – an umbrella that allowed each party to keep their own policies and candidates, subject to the overriding policy of seeking independence by a plebiscite election. The lists would have been full and the votes for all the umbrella parties aggregated to achieve success.
What has Mr Salmond done? He has not innovated a fresh concept. He is expecting supporters from the other parties to vote for his party. And he only has 4 candidates per region, all of them ex-SNP [I think].
It looks like a missed opportunity to improve our political life and lacking ambition – only 32 maximum Alba seats is possible.
I have donated to Alba and will do what I can to encourage votes for them but I am a shade disappointed, after my initial euphoria.
Looks like good news on Scot goes Pop link to scotgoespop.blogspot.com
SNP = Constituency
Alba = List
Interesting trans story. Maybe this is starting to turn round.
link to uk.news.yahoo.com
Then again, maybe not.
link to uk.news.yahoo.com
AYRSHIRE ROB says,
“Kcor,the Southside plugger
Do you want to marry Stuart Campbell or what?”
You already proved yourself an absolute moron once, ROB from AYRSHIRE, no need to do it again.
Just remembered, Sturgeon is also from AYRSHIRE.
Are you that sister of her’s by any chance?
Anyway, if you can’t get it into your thick head that Sarwar will be an MSP no matter what, it is upto you.
And if you want Sturgeon re-elected no matter what, that is also your choice.
Rob’s known her since she was sixteen rock.
😉
O/T What have the Greens done ?
Have they stopped grouse moor fires in Scotland ?
Have they stopped blood sports in Scotland ?
Have they stopped deer,mountain hare culls ?
Have they stopped the growth of estate tracks being bulldozed in Scotland ?
Have you seen a green banner at a march of a rally ?
Ross Greer says there’re are only two independence parties in Scotland (SNP & Green).
Well Ross there are in fact several Independence Parties in Scotland but the two that you mention are devolution parties !
So called tree huggers, I don’t think so, for their main (hidden) agenda look to their counterparts the German Greens, whom they aspire to ! Be prepared to be shocked !
Watching Harvey ( a distinctly Orwellian Looking little functionary) on ITV Scotland Tonight trying to show how different he is from the SNP. Lots of grandiose guff about transport links and shutting down the oil and gas industry which he has now admitted to. For me Alba needs to go on the attack on this economic front Harvey of course bodyswerved independence but bleated about Brexit. The Ipsos Mori poll conducted for ITV featuring, John Curtice pumping up Labour and the Greens and focusing on the 3% for Alba. Still very early days and with a virtual media blackout taking average polls not too bad. Alba needs to attack GRA, HCB, green shutdown of oil and gas and their pro bike obsession when better roads and public transport is most folks priority. We can also promote a more pragmatic policy on Europe based on EFTA.
Captain Yossarian
Look at Queen Betty’s, NHSGGC and Shona Robison. Do you think Sturgeon’s pal will be getting any of the blame? Did the Scot Govt come crashing down?
Think anyone else will stop voting SNP apart from maybe the families of the patients killed by a jerry-built hospital? Thankfully the Grenfell type cladding didn’t go up in flames.
Likewise Swinney will just be switched to another brief, if anything bad is gonnae come out in the news or parliament, so the new Cabinet Secretary carries the can.
Or there will eventually be an inquiry under a James Hamilton type figure.
Nobody is to blame. Lessons will be learned blah blah.
But, Please do keep plugging away. Nothing would ever change for the better if it weren’t for the whistleblowers etc. But, avoid 1-2-1 in person or phone unless you are recording it. Do it in writing.
Just don’t expect anyone taking the rap for it. It’s not the British / Colonial Scot Govt Establishment way of doing things old chap. The Establishment closes ranks. Remember: We invented the Freemasons.
@ Sarah at 10.23
I think there’s another way of looking at that.
You’re quite right that an umbrella allows parties to keep their own policies, and fills the lists. In the absence of Alba, I would almost certainly have voted for AfI because their lead candidate in my region was someone whom I thought would make a fine MSP.
But precisely because the excess votes trickle down the list, some people might make the effort to find out who all the candidates were, and be put off the entire list by someone who really wasn’t likely to get a seat. That applies with single parties too, of course; twice I’ve chosen to stop supporting a party because of the identity of their top candidate, even though I still liked some lower down. It’s just a bit more likely with a mix of parties on the one list.
“Initial euphoria” there was no grounds for euphoria, the “Bravehearts” are shit stupid and the wimmin are worse. If presumed adults can accept what Nicholas and the boys have done to them in the last couple of years they will get exactly what they deserve. The wimmin think Alex is a sleazy groper and that all men are rapists at heart.
Voting en masse for SNP 1 then afew thousand(if we are lucky) voting Alba 2 means a thumping majority for the corrupt SNP/ greens and eff all we can do about it.
Alex and this forum will be shown to be correct but out of touch with the people and Nick and the boys will have a ball( don’t want to think about that!!)
Is that right Mr Kcor
Approx 50 % of voters in Southside didn’t vote in the 2016 you knuckle heid(In constituency or list).
Alba should target those list voters who voted Yes in 2014 because a good percentage didn’t bother coming out to vote in 2016 for Holyrood.
I don’t give a toss about Sarwar or Sturgeon in constituency in SS. They can slug it out. Why are you plugging a yoon vote which is against indy.
Concentrate on Alba list vote ya clown ye. There’s another 50k votes sitting there that weren’t cast in 2016 up for grabs. Obviously not all people vote but that should be message in SS -Target the non voters in 2016 who voted Yes in 2014 and were pissed of and didn’t come out in 2016.
You don’t target no voters and yoons ya clown no matter what!
How fucking hard is that to understand eh?
Alba are not contesting constituency votes is SS, so it matters not to us.The constituency will sot itself out.Get that into your dunnerheid.
You cannot change what will happen in SS .Accept that. You need the courage to change the things you can- the list vote and the wisdom to know the difference.
Interesting how Nicola Sturgeon only a few weeks ago wrote to all members and supporters to apply for a postal vote, and how they should encourage friends to secure a postal vote to.
And what do people generally do when they get a postal vote. Yes the fill it in near immediately and return.
And that then is their vote sealed and delivered.
Consider then the timing of the postal ballot. To be issued on the 14th of April the vast majority will be returned the day or next after – which is a a full three weeks before the poll on the 6th May.
And so for voters already decided any future campaigning is gone because the vote is gone. And guess who this will disadvantage. Well of course the new Alba party who had just arisen on the scene a couple of weeks before.
And so with the BBC, the STV and the media denying them airtime or access to get their newly launched message out, Nicola’s encouragement can be seen for what it is.
An attempt to get people to vote before they’ve had the opportunity to hear a campaign message and decide.
A most undemocratic country and a disgrace in a so called western democracy. Every where you look you see the malign manipulation of democracy.
James Barr Gardner
Thanks to the Greens (Alison Johnstone MSP), a licence is now needed to kill mountain hares (legally) since June 2020.
link to archive.is
FOI time: how many licences were issued to kill how many mountain hares?
Is it a licensed slaughter now?
link to twitter.com
Good grief.
This is desperate, toe curling stuff, designed by an obsequious, crawley, crawley, bum-lick sycophant trying to please the Narcissist in Chief.
@ Kcor re ‘You didn’t read / understand what I wrote.’
That’s is entirely possible – and I apologise if that is the case.
I think part of what makes it difficult to understand and to discuss is the fact that we vote local, for the Constituency FPTP system, but then on the list, it is the 8 different regions (with the different Constituency MSP’s elected for each party) that then comes into play.
I’ll see if I can do my workings here, to argue my point re tactical voting for a Unionist in order to oust Odius SNP types on the Constituency.
Say an area like Mid Scotland elected 9 SNP members on the Constituency.
Then when it comes to List votes the tallies were as follows:
SNP 120,000 Tories 73,000 Labour 51,000 LDs 21,000 Greens 18,000
There are 7 ’rounds’ for 7 MSP List seats.
Round 1 – that SNP tally of 120,000 gets divided by 9+1=10 = 12,000.
So the tories get the first seat. There new total is 73,000 divided by 1+1 = 36,500
Now lets pretend that those 120,000 votes go this time round, to Alba.
Round 1, Alba gets the seat – and the new total would be 60,000
Round 2, Tories take one – their new total 36,500
Round 3 Alba – new total 40,000
Round 4 Labour – new total 25,500
Round 5 Alba – new total 24,000
Round 6 Tories – new total 18,250
Round 7 Labour
Finally list seat tallie – 3 Alba seats, 2 labour, 2 tories.
But lets say instead of electing 9 SNP Constituency MSP’s, lets say they got a lot less because folk voted tactically – for unionists.
And lets say that was common knowledge – so Indy voters, instead of making that 120,000 and making it Alba’s on the list, decided to ensure they remained loyal to the SNP on the list – and Alba gets much less. For the sake of arguement lets say the new total come out something like this:
SNP 60,000 Alba 60,000 Tories 73,000 Labour 51,000, LDs 21,000 Greens 18,000
And – lets say the SNP get about half the constituency seats they’re hoping for. Say 4. LD’s take 1, Tories take 1, and Labour 3.
Round 1
SNP 60,000 divided by 5 = 12,000 = zero MSP’s on the list.
Alba 60,000
Tories 73,000 divided by 2 = 36,500
Labour 51,000 divided by 4 = 12,750
LDs 21,000 divided by 2 = 10,500
Round 1 – Alba take the seat, new total 30,000
Round 2 Tories take the seat, new total 24,333
Round 3 Alba take the seat, new total 20,000
Round 4 Tories take the seat, new total 18,250
Round 5 Alba take the seat, new total 15,000
Round 6 Tories take the seat, new total 14,600
Round 7 Greens
Seats taken on list = Alba 3, Tories 3 Greens 1
Seats taken on the Constituency 4 SNP, 3 Labour, 1 Tory, 1 LD
So from an Indy point of view with tactical voting – to oust some SNP members – you get 4 SNP, 3 Alba and 1 Green – 3 labour 4 tories and 1 LD
Compared with Alba’s Both Votes Yes policy of 9 SNP 3 Alba – 2 Labour and 2 Tories.
So, what this shows, is that having a large Indy, list vote only Indy party is a Very good idea. Unless of course you are an existing Indy party that looks on the List votes as a way of providing a second bite at the cherry for your top politicians to still get elected – a safety net if you like.
It also shows that the chance for a supermajority is really reliant upon the SNP maintaining the poll ratings that indicate they are going to take the lions share of the Constituency votes.
Right just now, circumstances have created a bit of a perfect storm.
If we try to start tactically voting cetain ones out on the Constituency vote, there is a danger it will all fail big time.
I hope I’ve got the workings right, and the above make sense. As I said, I’m no expert and it is not easy. So apologies if its not.
OT
Since the “Declaration of Ellon” yesterday, Alex Salmond has been a busy man, doing interviews with the new media.
So far, I’ve listened to the Scot Goes Popcast and watched an interview with Pilar in Galicia, but I think this one is the best so far:
link to twitter.com
Denise asks some really good questions and elicits some powerful answers.
(This isn’t favouritism on my part; I’ve met all 3 of the interviewers. I just appreciated the scope.)
Jeggit and Barrhead Boy are still to come – possibly tomorrow / later today – and there may be others.
Crowdfunder on £29,260 now.
I’m a member of Alba and so of course will be voting for them on the list but the idea of voting SNP on the constituency was too much for me. However I think I’ve decided that I will indeed vote SNP on the constituency. What changed my mind was thinking If Alex Salmond can vote SNP on the constituency, after all he’s been through, and as he’s specifically asking people to do that, then that’s what I’ll do. Up til now I’ve voted SNP all my life but as far as this SNP government/party goes, It’s the last time I’ll vote for them.
Robert Hughes says:
7 April, 2021 at 8:04 am
Red @ 12 55 . Are you the artist formerly known as Who Rattled Your Cage by any chance ? I’ve noticed the latter’s absence and a similarity in style .
Thank you, I’ve never posted under a different name to “Red”, though I have been reading the blog for a while.
Jontoscots20 – my hope is that ALBA (or somebody, anybody) will start seriously agitating for a Scottish Bill of Rights.
It’s weird how the more “human rights” legislation we have, the less freedom we enjoy. We need actual, codified, enforceable rights like freedom of speech and association.
Sheepshagger – Any Indyref is going to need the energy of the woke to win.
Lol @ the idea the wokie woos have energy for things that aren’t on the internet and are interested in anything that doesn’t allow them to play social dominance games by calling people names.
No, any Indyref needs the engagement of normal people in the real world to win. Being hectored on Twitter by some pudgy twat with pink hair and bespoke pronouns is a net loser. One Manny Singh is worth more than all of these fools put together.
Re: Russia, Russia, Russia.
This is exactly what I thought they’d do next to try and monster Alex Salmond.
For whatever evil reason, TPTB in Washington DC and their English client state have a raging hateboner for Vladimir Putin.
None of the official reasons given make any sense. Russia isn’t a paragon of human rights, but it’s a lot better than most of our best pals in the Middle East and Asia. There’s no reason why Russia shouldn’t ally with the legitimate government of Syria (shame about the UK and US supporting “moderate” terrorists). We have no interests in Ukraine. I have no idea what happened to the Skripals, but the official story makes no sense and it’s being told by confirmed liars.
Looks like the clever people are hoping for a war with Russia, which seems like a bad idea to me, but I also thought attacking Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya for no good reason was a bad move.
I feel about the Russians the same way Muhammad Ali felt about the Vietnamese. They’ve never done me any wrong, but the people asking me to hate them have.
Sarah: “I am a bit concerned/annoyed about Mr Salmond’s decision to go it alone with Alba rather than come under AFI’s umbrella… an umbrella that allowed each party to keep their own policies and candidates…”
A fair point. But this is all about ends, not means. In Alba we have a party that is certainly going to win seats. I’ll refrain from naming names, but I don’t think any of those other small parties could guarantee seats, whether under an AFI umbrella or not.
Salmond is the reason Alba can guarantee seats where AFI and others (without him) couldn’t. Why would he or anyone who supports him want to weaken his gravitational pull?
Innovative isn’t always a good thing but I think running exclusively on the list is quite innovative.
“None of the official reasons given make any sense.”
Official or not, I think we all knew that the predictable consequence of Western meddling in Ukraine and Eastern Europe would be Russian “meddling” in The Middle East.
@Breeks says:
7 April, 2021 at 11:42 pm
“https://twitter.com/ComeToGhana/status/1379810620669886466
Good grief.
This is desperate, toe curling stuff, designed by an obsequious, crawley, crawley, bum-lick sycophant trying to please the Narcissist in Chief.”
Serious question on the tshirts. Is Sturgeon entitled to royalties for her “image” being used? it’s almost as bad as MSPs of ALL parties using crowd funders for their own personal campaigns. £80K a year (or whatever) doesn’t seem to be enough.
The Independent now running an article headed Alex Salmond spinning Russian propaganda because he wouldn’t credit Putin with the novichok attacks during the obsequious interview on Radio North Britain on weds morning.
Also reading an article that predicts Sturgeon to win 70 seats and the greens11/12.
I know this is an independence-supporting website but I just needed to alert politics aficionados that when George Galloway says that he believes in Brit-Anne, I think it most likely that he’s actually referring to the country Britain and not some random woman of said name, the memory of whom has somehow managed to reveal itself through the increasingly thick fog cluttering his mind.
So don’t be misled.
I mean…I probably believe in Brit-Anne too.
But Britain? Not so much.
Hatuey – Official or not, I think we all knew that the predictable consequence of Western meddling in Ukraine and Eastern Europe would be Russian “meddling” in The Middle East.
Maybe. They’ve historically been allies with Syria, but the chance to mess up the plans of the USA/UK/Israel is probably a bonus for them. Ukraine has been a mess since the CIA and EU (leave a light on, guys!) thought it’d be a great idea to sponsor a coup there.
The novichok story is wild. Apparently Russia has a hobby of poisoning people with a deadly nerve toxin that’s incredibly easy to trace back to Russia and somehow never seems to kill its intended targets. Beria must be spinning in his grave/Hell.
Gets even curiouser when you find out Russia didn’t invent novichok, which was first developed in the good ol’ US of A as “GJ” and deliberately passed to the Soviets by the FBI under Operation Shocker. The Yanks thought it wasn’t a very good weapon and would waste Ivan’s time. I’ve never seen this mentioned in the press and only found out about it surfing Wikipedia after reading about John le Carre:
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
“Shocker” is also rude slang for putting your fingers somewhere nice girls won’t let you put them, so it feels apt to feel like we’re now being diddled.
I don’t generally have much time for conspiracy theories (unless they’re funny), but the phenomenology of conspiracy theories is fascinating. Turns out people are more likely to become paranoid that they’re being lied to and manipulated when they find out they’re being lied to and manipulated. Crazy pattern-recognising bastards, so they are.
Beaker and Breeks
Re the SNP t shirts etc- and we are to accept that the reason Alex Salmond is unsuitable as a leader is because of his ‘ego’. Pot and kettle come to mind.
This is frightening!
Macaulay Culkin 7 April, 2021 at 10:36
“But Nic still can’t bring herself to see the folly of “both votes SNP”.
Think Highlander “There can be only one” Thats all Sturgeon wants and is likely to get because the SNP has become a cult with little critical thinking other than to worship the deity Nicola.
Wee Willie 7 April, 2021 at 6:23 pm
@ Vestas
“Your level of delusion knows no bounds. Craig Murray is not infallible. He as a rather second rate diplomat who appears to accuse the Israelis for the Salisbury incident. I must say that reading some of the contributions on here proves that massive delusion and paranoia seems to have taken off big time.”
God knows why Craig Murray tried to blame Israel when it was obvious who was responsible , poisonings are classic Russian tactics and about 15 of Putins detractors have been neutralised in recent years mostly in similar ways so trying to blame Israel was pitiful but he just couldn’t help himself from trying to blame Israel in order to try milk an easily sold conspiracy theory to the usual group of useful idiots he knew would just beleive that theory, probably thinking no one would be able to identify the real perpetrators anyway.
But then along came Bellingcat to spoil it for him and showed up Craig Murray’s amateur hour story for what it was by identifying the perpetrators of the attack pretty damn quickly. link to bellingcat.com
Red, I tend to avoid issues that can’t be proved or disproved. That means anything involving intelligence agencies. You never really get to the truth of things like 911 and Salisbury. That’s probably a good thing…
But I think it’s the big moves that they do up front (in your face) that are the most important and impactful things anyway.
Russia is a pretty weak country in the great scheme of things. The last time I looked, South Korea’s GDP was bigger. Russia has always behaved very rationally in international affairs and that’s usually a sign that you’re dealing with a relatively weak country — weak countries can’t afford to be irrational.
“But Nic still can’t bring herself to see the folly of “both votes SNP””
I’m sure she can. But encouraging people to vote Alba on the list wouldn’t exactly be music to the arse of the newly formed dyslexic brigade.
.
“music to the arse of the newly formed dyslexic brigade.”
wan smile
Colin Alexander – The folk to avoid telephoning are the lawyers.
Russia is a weak country, lol
Iv’e seen just about everything, when I see an elephant fly
Scotland needs to demand this is stopped right now, without delay. The English government have taken it upon themselves, to re-brand ‘public health England’, as ‘the UK health security agency’.
In short. England has unilaterally decided, without consultation to take over control of Public health (covid response etc..) from Wales and Scotland.
This needs a robust response at all levels, because what it means, is Boris the fat, lazy, pig-ignorant, racist English clown will by diktat take over control of the response to covid in Scotland and Wales.
Make no mistake, the dismamntling of devolution in Scotland and Wales is speeding up.
This is why we cannot wait for few years to pursue independence, we need independence now. It is urgent.
The name of this new organisation was changed literally at the very last minute. Anybody who believes the lying Tory scum will limit the control to just pandemic responses is foolish. This is about ensuring that in future Scotland will be told what to do by England, and decisions will be made in England,
Quote from English government press release;
“..will also work closely with the devolved administrations, taking on existing UK-wide responsibilities, and supporting all 4 Chief Medical Officers with access to the best scientific and analytical advice.”
Source link to gov.uk
Note : It was originally to be called The National Institute for Health Protection, but name was changed at last minute.
I see the news today of the Loyalists in Northern Ireland letting off a little bit of patriotic steam as the burn buses and throw stones on city streets.
Absolutely fabulous the patriotic fervour of these loyal subjects. The very folks the British military courted all the long years of the troubles. Such a delight to see them expressing themselves. Her Majesty will no doubt be ecstatic about their loyalty.
But are these people so different from many of the new settlers who have come to live in Scotland these last few years. The Royal Navy personnel who come to live in and around the Faslane area and who so proudly display on their garden flagpoles Union Jacks.
It is exactly the same mentality as those descendant settlers celebrating in the Belfast city streets. They came, they saw and they conquered. Interesting how history repeats.
The Plantation of Scotland. Laying down the future today. Tried and tested. It’s the British way. Just saying like.
Meg merrilees says:
8 April, 2021 at 1:56 am
“Re the SNP t shirts etc”
Have you seen the response from “Standing for Women”?
“As the SNP like our designs so much they copied it, we’ve made a Sturgeon t-shirt of our own.”
link to standingforwomen.com
If you actually read what Craig Murray says, much of which is backed with reputable sources and facts, often supported surprising revelations and obscure connections, (and obscure in the sense nobody else has the knowledge to join the dots), then the various scenarios which Craig Murray depicts can provoke some profound and alarming conclusions.
And it that trail of evidence only clicks maybe 8 or 9 of the boxes but stops one box short of being the conclusive proof of having all ten boxes clicked, that’s the nature of what investigative journalism does. It puts forward what it knows, often challenges people to disprove his evidence, and trusts the reader to draw his own conclusions.
He also strikes me as an inscrutable man of considerable courage and integrity, who is prepared to sacrifice his own interests for the greater good and principles of moral decency. That’s a rare decency in this modern world, but it’s still shines brightly.
Now take all of that in the round, and you have a composite image of a thoroughly decent person who’s wealth of experience and connections is a tremendous asset for Scotland and the cause of Scottish Independence…. and a man who makes enemies because he threatens the bad people in the system. That makes him dangerous. Not because he’s a whistleblower, but because Craig Murray’s the man who the whistleblowers can trust. When Craig listens, the whistleblowers find sanctuary.
But the good must always be counterbalanced by the bad, and luckily we have Wee Willie presenting us with his alternative reality that Craig Murray isn’t infallible and was a second rate diplomat. We must note however that Wee Willie presents his conclusions without a scrap of supporting evidence or counter argument to substantiate his denunciation.
Did I say “counterbalanced”? Wrong word. Sorry. The criticism of Craig Murray seems nothing but unsubstantiated conjecture with distinct overtones of malice and derision.
And moving on from Craig, I have an annoying frustration with people blaming “The” Russians. Which Russians? The Russian’s loyal to the Russian state? Or the Russian dissidents, some of whom plundered and embezzled billions from the fall of Communism and are now sworn enemies of the Russian State, which has painted a target on their backs.
There seems to me to be a vicious and dirty war of Russian on Russian going on, with other, ahem, “interest groups” and anti-Russian Intelligence Groups being all too ready to exploit this vicious Russian on Russian aggression to discredit the Russian State under Putin.
When that “mess” is the backdrop to “blaming the Russians”, it strikes me Craig Murray’s suspicious and doubtful first instincts on these events is a vastly more appropriate response than a superficial knee jerk reaction which urges us all to believe that Moscow is the root of evil because ‘someone’ says so.
So before anybody wants to discredit Craig Murray, try discrediting his evidence or answering the profound and alarming questions he asks first. Otherwise keep your gratuitous smears to yourself.
Tories decide Scots should be sent out of the way to the English Colonies!
link to facebook.com
Breeks , a round of applause from me!
@Breeks (7.45) –
Hear hear.
And those slating Murray might also want to consider his motivation.
The man is getting on and has a very young family to support and enjoy in his later years. Why would be risk jail and further years of persecution?
God only knows, people to look up to are few and far between these days. Craig happens to be one of them, which is probably why jumped-up door-to-door salesmen like Rennie are so jealous of him.
The SNP list vote is going down and it is all transferring to the Greens and Labour.
Not in my World! Not among the people I talk to!
I suspect more dirty tricks going on with the early polling data. They are trying to influence the direction of travel with a demoralising campaign against Alba progress.
Stick with SNP1/Alba2 and ignore the MSM
Sick to death of bbc -DRoss just been on radio scotland and given free reign to dis snp and AS for all his worth – hardly interrupted at all – given long time to answer compare and contrast with AS interview – supposed to be journalists – not a fair bone in their bodies – obvious direction from bbc – tories given an easy ride and indy supporters ‘put the boot in’ just like sky and all the other right wing media. I know how he got the gig – you take a deep breath and you just rabbit on – remember ruthie and her advice – does not matter if true or not it is still out there and heard.
Willie – I agree, what is happening in Ireland is ugly and was predicted as a consequence of Brexit, largely dismissed as project fear by those who should have known better – or chose to forget what they knew. It’s a border people were promised would not materialise, or if it did would at worst be be electronic and have no material interference on day to day lives. There’s a schism in Northern Ireland and it is heartbreaking to see it opening again and it’s hard to see this not becoming worse as time passes as the border is a legal requirement.
Effigy 8.09am, i wonder if Scots unionists are ok with being insulted like this?. Then again with not having a spine, i suppose they are.
Douglas Ross just had a farcical interview on Radio North Britain. He’s on Call Kaye fir anyone wanting to ask him any questions- that will have to fit with a North Britain editorial brief of course!
For the record he wisnae asked about the Russians and Novichok.
Instructing people to vote for Cons on the list and big on the brilliant UK bringing us the vaccine.
People should read about the efforts Craig Murray made to get the truth out and how Jack Straw and the Labour Government tried to shut him up. The false charges and accusations to smear him.
Only good men endure that type of pain to simply do the right thing and speak the truth.
`Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund has made its first direct investment in a renewable energy project, a new asset class for the world’s largest state-owned investor`
any comments Sir Tom Hunter or Sir Ian Wood.
@breeks (7.45)
Brilliant, once again
The Prat that wants to be a cat in the hat
link to twitter.com
Rev.
Any chance of piece on why Tom Gordon is Nicola Sturgeon’s best pal all of a sudden?
His sudden love of all things Nikla is Damascene.
Dross on shortbread radio just now very poor.
Asked about the crazy trans question he could not answer, shocking, he is struggling I knew he was poor but having not heard him for a while you forget how awful he is.
For Breeks
First thing I read today and your observations re Craig Murray spot on. The Contempt of Court case entirely political , and clearly demonstrates that anyone providing Defence information connected to Alex Salmond /Scotsgov is hunted down . There is nothing second rate about CM .
It’s okay but I wouldn’t make another – won’t encourage anyone to vote SNP who fears being taken away off to a warehouse to be tortured
@Breeks, Your customary brilliant analysis. You should be in politcs. Preferably Alba!!!!
Extraordinary that the Sturgeonites mantra now is that it is necessary to believe every story propagated by the people who killed Willie MacRae in order to be politically acceptable.
I look forward to Wee Willie using his extensive knowledge of Bellingcat in order to answer these ten questions.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Winfred, if anyone on Radio Scotland is being allowed to attack Nicola, it suggests they’ve let a little impartiality creep into their affairs.
BBC Scotland has been blatantly on Nicolas side for about a year and a half (at least).
Effigy @ 8:09 am
“Tories decide Scots should be sent out of the way to the English Colonies!”
The Tories clearly think Scotland is their territory and are happy to stand up in their parliament and put us Scots in our ‘place’. As Cesaire explained, colonialism is racism, prejudice and fascism all rolled up together. According to the UN, colonialism is “a scourge” and should be ended.
George Galloway is pathetic, slithering into ad hominem when he can’t answer the question.
The fraud in the fedora.
Don – But then along came Bellingcat to spoil it for him and showed up Craig Murray’s amateur hour story for what it was by identifying the perpetrators of the attack pretty damn quickly.
The same Bellingcat that’s literally paid by the Foreign Office to “weaken” Russia?
Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal – link to mobile.twitter.com
Mibbe we shouldn’t automatically believe people who have a financial interest in pushing a story.
David Caledonia says:
8 April, 2021 at 6:22 am
Russia is a weak country, lol
Hatuey is right. They’re a wan shadow of the Soviet Union, military power has dropped precipitously and so has their population. (Which is important btw, if you look at history countries with declining populations don’t do invasions, they get invaded).
Russia has a similar GDP to Italy, which isn’t usually regarded as a superpower since the end of the Roman Empire. They spend about 10% of what the USA does on the military. The Chinese spend about 3x as much on defence. Most of their hardware is legacy Cold War kit that they’re struggling to find money to upgrade.
The Soviet Union used to be able to boast an impressive capability for spying and influence farming, partly due to the ideological appeal of Communism in Western elite circles, partly due to their allies in East Germany. Modern Russia’s alleged spying operations have been embarrassingly amateurish efforts involving crude honeypot schemes and neds getting high on drugs before failing to kill their targets with a deadly nerve toxin. They’re also widely hated in Western elite circles.
They’re a regional power with a limited ability to project military presence and a bunch of ICBM’s. That means they should be taken seriously, but the days of worrying about Reds (no relation) swarming through the Fulda Gap to turn Western Europe communist are never coming back.
No doubt Russia is a deeply corrupt country run by gangsters, but they’re not an existential threat unless we get into a shooting war with them that escalates to nukes. Unfortunately the senile corpse in the White House and his blond sidekick in Downing Street are determined to poke the bear. While simultaneously sucking China’s wang, despite that country being a much more obviously evil regime with genuine global ambitions.
A strange game.
Re Craig Murray – well said Breeks.
I have to admit the comment made by someone else re CM being a ‘rather second rate Ambassador’ made me laugh. How the hell would anyone know?
I mean its not a profession like football where its easy to keep a score.
Anyway, having seen the calibre of his writing and reports – nothing second rate about them in any shape or form.
I sincerely hope that when Alba get elected there is a SPAD role for him, and when Scotland gets Indy – a head of civil service/ambassadors role there also.
I will be forever grateful for his reporting of the AS trial. Defence evidence particularly.
There are many kinds of brave – his disclosure of the torture and flights of rendition – at the cost of his personal and professional detriment, is one of the hardest.
Whatever the truth of the Skripal incident, one thing is clear. Whoever perpetrated it – the Skripals themselves, MI5, Russia – was intending to send a message in as public a manner as possible.
If they’d wanted him quietly dead, he’d be quietly dead.
I even suspect that the daughter was involved so as to maximise the publicity. Sadly, young women attract more press interest than mature men.
So what was the message, and to whom was the message sent?
Had a converstation with a fello yesser the other day. Both of us concerned that without Alex, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else to step into his shoes.
This below is from Jim Sillars over on Yours For Scotland,
‘I have been a past critic of Alex Salmond on his role within the SNP, but I have never doubted his ability. He is a heavy weight in any political company, and when he was first minister there was a drive, energy, and achievements, in his economic and social policies. But it is not just him. It has been little noticed, and so not commented upon, but Alba right now can muster a cabinet with a great deal more ability and gravitas than Nicola Sturgeon has been able to do from the MSPs available to her.
When I look at Alba, I see serious people, given to thinking, to exploring policy in depth, willing to canvass opinions beyond their own ranks, recognising that they need to tap into the knowledge of others, as well as their own. So, Alba’s policies will be rooted in reality. Not only what should be done to bring inequality to an end, but what will be done.’
I’d agree with that.
O/T
Can anyone tell me who to complain to about the SNP sending me mail begging for donations.
I was a member of the SNP but left about 4 years ago and have returned letters, emailed them asking them to remove me from their list but still receive mail from them.
My assumption is I receive these letters as a former member but am now questioning if they are using other sources to harvest names.
Claire @ 9:14 am
“observations re Craig Murray spot on. The Contempt of Court case entirely political”
Initial observations on the judgment appear to relate to:
– some of the judges concerned were involved in related cases, which may give cause for concern as to ‘apparent bias’ (given that these judges were already aware of the identity of complainers and this knowledge may have aided ‘their’ jigsaw identification on the basis of Craig’s articles);
– the judgement is said to be based on the judges ‘objective test’, which on closer analysis may be neither ‘objective’ (i.e. it seems rather more subjective), nor is it really a robust ‘test’ as such;
– by undertaking what is described as an ‘objective test’ in order to determine ‘guilt’, it might be argued that the judges appear to be doing the prosecution’s job for them.
Anyone joined Alba? Any news on local activism? If polls are to be believed we’re going to need to get a hell of a lot more active. I’ve now had one leaflet – SNP – through the door. Obviously says both votes SNP and also puts something muted about indy near the end.
Daisy Walker at 10.26am
Does the wee whiff of Jew-baiting not concern you, then?
Well said about Craig Murray Breeks, I cancelled my Digital National subscription the other week and divert that money now to Craig’s Blog. I know that many on here will not be subscribing to the National But if there are any left, consider supporting Craig Instead.
I see it’s being reported that the Great Helmswoman “pledges to increase NHS activity to pre-pandemic levels”!!
So yet again, in the Tweedledum & Tweedledee world that is Scottish secessionist politics, the word ‘pledge’ has been redefined to mean ‘reinstated to what we were paying for before the service was withdrawn from us’.
What does it say about both the bovine brainlessness of the electorate, and the idleness of the opposition (sic) that these shysters have been repeatedly elected to office? We get the governance we deserve right enough…
@ John McNab says:
8 April, 2021 at 11:10 am
Daisy Walker at 10.26am
Does the wee whiff of Jew-baiting not concern you, then?
Not in anyway sure what your on about John. You’ll know best yourself. I won’t be responding to further comments from you, in case your looking for a bite.
I have had three leaflets from the Tories in less than a week. It begs the question about their electoral spending and where they are getting the money for this. It wouldn’t surprise me if the source of it was foreign and I include Engerland in that definition.
It is ironic that in their leaflets the Tories have mentioned Independence and Referendum more in them than the SNP has in the last 6 years in any forum put together. I dont think it is any exaggeration to say that.
Baxter says:
8 April, 2021 at 10:35 am
O/T
Can anyone tell me who to complain to about the SNP sending me mail begging for donations.
I was a member of the SNP but left about 4 years ago and have returned letters, emailed them asking them to remove me from their list but still receive mail from them.
My assumption is I receive these letters as a former member but am now questioning if they are using other sources to harvest names’
They either have your contact details held on their data base – which they should no longer, as its a breach of data protection laws.
Or they have obtained them from the Voters Roll (legally) in order to canvass you – however I doubt if that includes canvassing you for money!.
SNP HQ is who you should send a message to.
Baxter says:
8 April, 2021 at 10:35 am
“O/T
Can anyone tell me who to complain to about the SNP sending me mail begging for donations.
I was a member of the SNP but left about 4 years ago and have returned letters, emailed them asking them to remove me from their list but still receive mail from them.”
https://ico.org.uk and you’re looking at the direct marketing regulations->marketing lists and your right to opt-out.
ICO Scotland doesn’t have any powers to get involved, basically all they do is make up excuses why the SNP aren’t complying with FoI requests.
For Alf Baird
Re Craig Murray the concept of the objective test entirely divorced from both intention and harm appears to be both arbitrary and contentious.
And another reason to be scared link to archive.is
OK so it’s from reason.com and it’s a story about a university administration but after the Hate Crime Bill you can see which direction this is all heading and rather rapidly too.
Now, Rev., I’m concerned about your rather aggressive attitude towards the SNP Administration. The government cares about you and is worried that your irrational response towards it’s policies is putting you and others at risk. Have you considered counseling?
John McNab is not only looking for a bite. He is looking to discredit the Yes movement as they succeeded to do with Labour.
Baxter says…
Does this mean they dont delete names of members who have left from their data base?
Baxter says…8 april 2021 10.35am
Does this mean they dont delete names of members who have left from their data base?
Whoever said Craig Murray was second rate is talking out their arse. He was a high flyer, aced the foreign office exams and was put on the fast track. That is how he ended up an ambassador at such a young age.
By blowing the whistle as he did (back) then he sacrificed a career that most people would drool over.
I don’t agree with his every opinion but people slagging him off should have a look at themselves.
He is also now about to go to jail for the crime of exposing the plot to stitch-up Salmond. For standing up for AS during his darkest hours when very few others were.
And that is what he is going to jail for. It is entirely ‘political’ and it is a disgrace to the justice system in Scotland (yet another one).
(Also everything he says about The Skripals is valid. I can’t believe so many people believed that official story. It is a subject that still attracts a lot of on-line heat if you catch my drift.)
Daisy, Vestas.
Thanks for the reply.
I have sent emails to SNP HQ in the past asking them to remove me from their list but still receive raffle tickets and letters asking for donations.
I have in the last year received letters with Swinney’s signature on them about Covid from the Scottish Government, I might just go and dig them out to check any reference numbers on them to compare to the one I received today.
Clearly the local MSP doesn’t feed back to HQ as she was told way back in January there was no way I was voting for the SNP while Sturgeon and Swinney were in any posistion in the SNP.
Crisicult says.
Share it. The BBC won’t let him in.
link to mobile.twitter.com
Crisicult says
link to fb.watch
It is not just the subject of Alex Salmond getting stitched-up or independence in general that paints a big target on Craig Murray’s back.
Craig Murray defends many other causes that make him a huge target of other groups as well, other interests.
His recent piece on the strange convulsion in Scottish politics provides a good example of this.
It is truly shocking that they are going to jail this guy. Says a lot about how far Scotland has fallen under this government.
Thanks crazycat @ 12:33am for this Alex Salmond link/interview.
Yes I agree—- it’s one of the best so far.
link to twitter.com
I’ve read what’s appeared here this morning with increasing despair. You’re all falling for the Rangers Herald’s shitshow in looking for deflection material by joining in ranting about something 99% of households don’t care two fks about.
The real world out there doesn’t care about conspiracy theories, the company REGIONAL politicians keep (if they did, most councillors would be lucky to walk the streets unscathed), or any of the other flim flam Sturgeon and those dependent on her patronage would rather you paid attention to.
Sturgeon and her flying monkeys treat things of relevence to 0.2% of the population as top priority, which is the reason why we now have the vacuum Alba hopes to fill. See a parallel here people?
Pay attention to the SNP’s dodgy accounts and especially to the madness of the Gender Recognition Act “reforms” that will be a dripping roast to every sicko to turn Scotland into their playground and every female “safe space” turned into a potential trap. Get the word out to all you can about that – and Sturgeon’s finished.
That’s where this battle will be fought and won – not on the trainspotter fringes of parapolitics.
Mac @ 11.37
Well said!
If I remember correctly he was the youngest diplomat at the time. And given he wasn’t an arselicker nor Eton ‘with connections’ that’s quite an achievement. It’s sad those that lap up the misinformation levelled at him just like AS.
Like you I don’t always agree with him, I’m polar opposed to his views on the whole Trans debate. But I still respect him for his great intellect on geo- politics, history, and Scottish independence.
He is the very sort of person that should be in our parliament not these fucking morons that currently inhabit the gravy train.
It almost seems like it’s by design to have dumb politicians in HR to keep the electorate sleepy, indifferent, and turned off. How good would it be to have CM in parliament and I don’t doubt that this whole contempt of court case was to keep him out of parliament.
“Anna says:
8 April, 2021 at 11:36 am
Baxter says…8 april 2021 10.35am
Does this mean they dont delete names of members who have left from their data base?”
————————————————-
They probably dont as I get letters years after having left the SNP and they even have my mother registered as a voter even though she passed away three years ago and didn’t live to see Scotland Independent.
@ Baxter at 10:35 am
It is my belief that Murrell when he was the Data Controller used CA (Cambridge Analytica)to harvest names and through that, used Facebook for information
Facebook was actively promoted within the Branches.
You could do a Subject Access Request to see what data they have on you
Some have found out that they were suppose to be a candidate but absolutely nothing happened ie they never were
I have grave concerns that the data is being used for “leverage”
Daisy at 12.17am
It should be ‘you’re’ not ‘your’ and ‘anyway’ should be two separate words. If you truly don’t know what I’m on about, you’ve not been paying attention.
I Agree with Mark Boyle, what is being done to Scotland politically and socially by St Nicolas and her little helpers is a disgrace and possibly more important than the issue of independence, which I support.
Famous 15 at 11.30am
The Yes movement is quite capable of discrediting itself. It needs no help from me or anyone else.
John McNab 8 April, 2021 at 1:40 pm
Daisy at 12.17am
“It should be ‘you’re’ not ‘your’ and ‘anyway’ should be two separate words. If you truly don’t know what I’m on about, you’ve not been paying attention”
If all you can do it try to belittle someone with spelling or grammar errors instead of the points made it probably says more about you TBH.
Robert 8 April, 2021 at 10:17 am
“Whatever the truth of the Skripal incident, one thing is clear. Whoever perpetrated it – the Skripals themselves, MI5, Russia – was intending to send a message in as public a manner as possible.
If they’d wanted him quietly dead, he’d be quietly dead.
I even suspect that the daughter was involved so as to maximise the publicity. Sadly, young women attract more press interest than mature men.
So what was the message, and to whom was the message sent?”
—————–
“the Skripals themselves” ? Hahahah Seriously ? You think people go about having themselves attacked with nerve agents ? You might be surprised no doubt to find that it isn’t a most pleasurable experience.
The message was simple “You don’t ever cross Putin because you will pay for it sooner or later , because he doesn’t ever forget or forgive , so just dont go there right ?”
Here is a list of other Putins enemies who have all been extinguished, how many do you think Israel was responsible for ?
Anyone trying to blame Israel would not have got good odds from the bookies and the bookies are rarely wrong 🙂
link to businessinsider.com
link to atlanticcouncil.org
link to afr.com
link to politifact.com
@Red 8 April, 2021 at 10:05 am
“Don – But then along came Bellingcat to spoil it for him and showed up Craig Murray’s amateur hour story for what it was by identifying the perpetrators of the attack pretty damn quickly.
The same Bellingcat that’s literally paid by the Foreign Office to “weaken” Russia?
Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal – link to mobile.twitter.com
Mibbe we shouldn’t automatically believe people who have a financial interest in pushing a story.”
Perhaps you should find a verifiable source of truth instead of the first dodgy Russian State supporting website trying to deny and talkdown proven evidence. Russia Today of course is also a well known propaganda tool of Putins (Google can help you with that too)
“Investigative journalism is way too strong a term for what The Grayzone does. The site seems to be largely a political advocacy group with a mishmash of views that look quite strange to someone used to mainstream western journalism.
To be polite, it seems to be pushing news as viewed from a strongly Russian perspective. Max Blumenthal, who created The Grayzone, has written for RT (formerly called Russian Times) and Sputnik, which both present that country’s viewpoint and are considered state-controlled propaganda.” link to quora.com
AYRSHIRE ROB says,
“I don’t give a toss about Sarwar or Sturgeon in constituency in SS. They can slug it out. Why are you plugging a yoon vote which is against indy.”
Solid thick headed moron, Sturgeon’s sister ROB from AYRSHIRE, if you don’t give a toss, why do you always pop up when the easy way of getting rid of Sturgeon is mentioned?
For the umpteenth time, Sarwar will get in no matter what, but if he gets in through the constituency, Sturgeon is out of parliament.
Either you are the thickest person in Scotland or you are a diehard Sturgeonist who wants Sturgeon back in no matter what.
Don – Perhaps you should find a verifiable source of truth instead of the first dodgy Russian State supporting website trying to deny and talkdown proven evidence. Russia Today of course is also a well known propaganda tool of Putins (Google can help you with that too)
As far as I can tell, nobody has denied the story is true, merely ignored it or griped about it possibly being uncovered via “hacking”, or used handwavium as you did to imply it’s all a nefarious Kremlin plot through feeble guilt-by-association innuendo. I don’t see any reason why journalists shouldn’t work for RT, or the BBC, or Fox News, or the Dundee Courier. But you seem to be of the view that there’s some sort of saintly, incorruptible mass media platform out there untainted by editorial bias. That’s naive.
The UK Government has made its emnity with Russia clear in its “Global Britain” strategy. There’s still no convincing explanation of why. None of our legitimate interests are in conflict with Russia and there’s no sane reason to square off with them. We won the Cold War in 1991, but refused to take victory for an answer. It’s Britain – not Russia – that has gone on to carve a bloody swathe of murder from Belgrade to Baghdad, but apparently it’s the Rooskies we need to be wary of.
Russia Today is, of course, a propaganda outlet of the Russian government. Just as the BBC and Bellingcat are propagandists for the British government. The main difference between them is that Russian propaganda is crude and obvious, while British propaganda is some of the slickest and most sophisticated in the world.
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect: we notice how often the MSM misrepresents the reality of what’s going on in Scotland, but then blithely assume they’re not lying about everything else.
AYRSHIRE ROB says,
“Alba are not contesting constituency votes is SS, so it matters not to us.The constituency will sot itself out.Get that into your dunnerheid.”
Solid thick headed moron, Sturgeon’s sister ROB from AYRSHIRE, this has nothing to do with the ALBA list vote.
For the record, I am 100% in favour of list vote for ALBA in every region.
Constituency will not sort itself out – it needs sorting out by intelligent voters in Glasgow Southside. Thank goodness you are in AYRSHIRE.
VOTING FOR SARWAR GETS RID OF STURGEON – without any other side effect:
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Scheming on a mirage),
“It’s much the same as the Glasgow Southside situation. You’re not choosing between Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon – Sarwar is top of the Labour list so he’s getting in no matter what happens. What you’re effectively doing with your constituency vote in Glasgow Southside is choosing between two SNP MSPs – Sturgeon or Roza Salih. If you’d prefer Salih, vote Sarwar on the constituency paper.)”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Rallying to the banner),
“If you believe Sturgeon is a block on independence it’s a very rational position.”
If you can’t understand what the Rev. Stuart Campbell wrote, you are the thickest person in Scotland.
Or you are a diehard Sturgeonist who wants Sturgeon back in no matter what.
Daisy Walker says,
“That’s is entirely possible – and I apologise if that is the case.”
I don’t know the numbers but my two points were:
1. We need to get the most obnoxious of the SNP candidates like Sturgeon, Swinney, Robertson to be defeated in the constituencies.
2. Whoever gets the constituency seat does not affect ALBA’s chances on the list in the region in which that constituency lies.
Which hopefully will result in lots of ALBA seats, no SNP majority and get the most obnoxious of the SNP MSPs out of parliament.
If you read the comments above, the Rev. himself dreads the thought of the SNP getting a majority.
Only intelligent tactical voting, and not the SNP 1 ALBA 2 mantra, can give us the best result for independence.
The best policy in Sturgeon’s Glasgow Southside constituency is Labour 1 / ALBA 2.
You may not trust me but unless you are a secret diehard Sturgeonist like several posters here, you would trust the Rev:
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Scheming on a mirage),
“It’s much the same as the Glasgow Southside situation. You’re not choosing between Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon – Sarwar is top of the Labour list so he’s getting in no matter what happens. What you’re effectively doing with your constituency vote in Glasgow Southside is choosing between two SNP MSPs – Sturgeon or Roza Salih. If you’d prefer Salih, vote Sarwar on the constituency paper.)”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says (Rallying to the banner),
“If you believe Sturgeon is a block on independence it’s a very rational position.”
Daisy Walker says,
“I’ll see if I can do my workings here, to argue my point re tactical voting for a Unionist in order to oust Odius SNP types on the Constituency.”
I don’t know much about how the numbers work, but I don’t think you are comparing like with like.
Try doing a calculation on the basis that all other things being equal on the List, Sarwar defeats Sturgeon in the Glasgow Southside constituency.
How would ALBA’s chances of winning List seats in Glasgow be affected?
A bit stupid Stu to link us to Iplayer.
DOES ANYONE ON THIS SITE PAY THE BBC LICENCE???
If they do they must be a yoon
@Red 8 April, 2021 at 7:18 pm
Don – Perhaps you should find a verifiable source of truth instead of the first dodgy Russian State supporting website trying to deny and talkdown proven evidence. Russia Today of course is also a well known propaganda tool of Putins (Google can help you with that too)
As far as I can tell, nobody has denied the story is true, merely ignored it or griped about it possibly being uncovered via “hacking”, or used handwavium as you did to imply it’s all a nefarious Kremlin plot through feeble guilt-by-association innuendo. I don’t see any reason why journalists shouldn’t work for RT, or the BBC, or Fox News, or the Dundee Courier. But you seem to be of the view that there’s some sort of saintly, incorruptible mass media platform out there untainted by editorial bias. That’s naive.
——————————————–
No, Whats really naive is when a chemical nerve agent attack or other poisoning attack happens on UK soil is to try to blame Israel of all nations , because the first thing most people would say is who has History of attacking enemies of Putin in the UK and EU with chemicals ..Russia ? YES Israel ? No There is a long history of Russian attacks in the UK with poisons perhaps you aren’t old enough to know of them all.
Have you heard of Occams Razor ? It states “The simplest answer is usually the truthful one” and is true. link to simple.wikipedia.org.
How many blatant assumptions and contorted scenarios would anyone have to constructfrom thin air in order to try to make any sort of case for blaming Israel poisoning enemies of Putin in the UK ? 🙂
@ Kcor re, ‘1. We need to get the most obnoxious of the SNP candidates like Sturgeon, Swinney, Robertson to be defeated in the constituencies.
2. Whoever gets the constituency seat does not affect ALBA’s chances on the list in the region in which that constituency lies.’
Hello Kcor, I share your frustration, however my understanding of how DeHonte works is as follows, and why your second point might not be correct.
In Mid Scotland Region there are 9 Constituency seats and 7 List seats up for grabs.
In 2016, the SNP won all 9 Constituency seats. And they got about 120,000 List votes in total.
The DeHonte method is for round 1 on the list
Take that number 9 +1 = 10 and divide it into 120,000 = 12,000 – That became the SNP’s new total.
The tories got no Constituency seats, but took about 73,000 List votes. So they won round 1 and got one List MSP out of it. Their new total became 73,000 divided by 1 (the MSP) + 1 (the dehonte formula) = 36,500.
If they had started with say 3 Constituency Seats won to begin with, round 1 on the list would have been 73,000 divided by 4….
So your point, – ‘2. Whoever gets the constituency seat does not affect ALBA’s chances on the list in the region in which that constituency lies.’ Is not correct… at the moment.
The more seats the SNP win on the Constituency, the bigger detriment it has on their list vote total.
The less seats they win, the more likely they are to take seats on the List vote – if the list vote for the SNP remains high and does not transfer en mass to Alba.
If the SNP fail to take nearly all the Constituency seats AND Alba fails to take (at a guess) over 50% of the List seat votes (that previously went to SNP) – then rather than maximising the YES vote, Alba and SNP will be in direct competition for the list seat votes.
Where it could change – and we won’t ‘know’ until nearer polling day, is if Alba is set to take as near as damn it, all the former SNP List votes.
If that looks like what is going to happen, then the Constituency votes – become a straight up FPTP, tactical vote for your favourite, in key areas.
The problem is, the thing that is enabling genuine loyal SNP Indy supporters to look at this afresh and ‘lend’ Alba their list vote – is the fact that Alex is saying Vote SNP 1, Alba 2. Nation before party.
Take that away, and the Loyal SNP folk who have not been following all the ins and outs, will not transfer their list vote to Alba – and that really would stuff things up big time.
Trust me when I say, I want rid of Nicla, Swinney, Robertson and Useless as much as you, but the electorial window of opportunity to do so, is not yet clearly there, and might not happen.
Red 8 April, 2021 at 7:18 pm
“It’s Britain – not Russia – that has gone on to carve a bloody swathe of murder from Belgrade to Baghdad, but apparently it’s the Rooskies we need to be wary of”
————————————————–
Mmmmmm Is that really so ? 🙂
“In a Q&A with journalist, Sturgeon said she was disappointed but not surprised after Salmond — who hosts a chat show on Kremlin-backed channel RT — this week refused to say if he believed that Vladimir Putin’s government was behind the 2018 Salisbury poisonings.
The Nats boss warned her predecessor he should be “mindful of the values of our country and the values we want to project internationally”
link to thescottishsun.co.uk
When I was young, I remember watching the program Big Brother. It scared me then, and after watching this, I was scared again. I got that awful feeling of dread. I fear for the future with SNP
@Red 8 April, 2021 at 7:18 pm
“It’s Britain – not Russia – that has gone on to carve a bloody swathe of murder from Belgrade to Baghdad, but apparently it’s the Rooskies we need to be wary of”
Just spotted this by chance in the News today , in your mind do you really think Israel killed this one too or maybe a Russian ?
link to bbc.co.uk
Daisy Walker says,
“Hello Kcor, I share your frustration, however my understanding of how DeHonte works is as follows, and why your second point might not be correct.”
crazycat says,
“The number of votes the SNP get in a constituency they don’t win is irrelevant.”
Daisy, as I said I don’t know how the numbers work, but from what I understand, it does not affect ALBA whether the SNP or another unionist party wins the constituency seat.
(I deliberately wrote another unionist party because the SNP under Sturgeon and Murrell IS a unionist party).
Kcor
Daisy’s explanation of the division of votes on the regional list seats is correct. Quoting Crazycat on this point is inappropriate as Crazycat used that phrase to correct a mistake I had made trying to explain the voting system and discussing a different point.
The higher the number of constituency seats a party wins proportionally reduces their chances of winning any list seats so there is an indirect effect.